LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 03/10/2004 11:47 AM "Ugh, good god... what happened to my head?" Dee groaned and quickly downed the Advil and glass of water some thoughtful person had set on the end table to the left of her hotel bed before flopping back down. Really, a rhetorical question... she remembered exactly what happened, of course. As she waited for the pounding in her head to ease off and the world to stop being so utterly wretched, she punched up the internet to check for news. Her arm computer had automatically found several wireless networks to tap into and combined the bandwidth, so it was only a matter of a few seconds to find that the gun expo had been canceled. No fatalities, miraculously, though there were quite a few people hospitalized... both because of the nutball and because of people accidentally shooting each other. Damo must've woken up early and gone to pack up the rest of the stuff. "Shower," she muttered before sliding off the bed and getting to her feet. "Shower, then food." It was a couple hours later, and she and Damocles were in the shop van heading back towards Athena Heavy Industries, in Arizona. They'd been more or less silent for the last half hour, Dee curled up in the passenger seat and Damo driving down I93. "That was pretty much your first time with that sort of thing, wasn't it." Neither of them had moved, and Damo said that in an even tone of voice. "Yeah... pretty much." "It gets better, in a way." "That's horrible!" "Yeah, probably. At least no one died this time." There was silence for another few minutes. "I sent a request for info through the JihadLinker last night... figured that they'd know if anyone did, especially with as weird as this was. Still no reply." "Patience. There's probably not too many people with working Linkers anymore, and they probably don't check too often. "Yeah, I guess... it's probably unrelated anyway." ------------------------------------ */ Marco Beltrami, "Main Titles" _Hellboy_ /* Illuminati International Pictures presents a tale of the J I H A D U N I V E R S E 3 . 0 Investigations written by S. Malalcypse Breen, Dan DeRosia, Kirk Felton, Rens Houben, Aris Merquoni, Patrick Stewart, Warrior Tang, Kat Templeton and Jim Yearnshaw Directed by S. Malaclypse Breen (c)2004 The Jihad to Destroy Barney ------------------------------------ SPIRAL BUILDING DENVER, COLORADO 03/13/2004 7:50 AM Despite Owsen's sudden reappearance on Tuesday, the rest of the week had proceeded without incident. That alone was enough to put Mal's nerves on edge. So far Owsen hadn't made any attempt to contact the Jihad; he hadn't been seen near the old watch stations or the site of the TRES base, and the rudimentary reestablishment of the JihadLinker network hadn't seen any sign of Owsen's Linker signature. After his performance in Vegas, Owsen had simply faded out of sight. Easy jokes about Vegas and obscurity aside, for somebody as naturally flashy as Owsen to vanish like that worried Mal, and he had spent the last week waiting for the other shoe to drop. When Minerva came in carrying the newspaper, he knew from the expression on her face that the shoe had finally dropped. "Take a look at this," Minerva thwapped the newspaper down unceremoniously on Mal's desk. "Page 6." Mal turned the page and quickly found the article Minerva was referring to. The headline said it all: "Mystery slaying in Austin leaves police baffled." The content was par for the course, part AP wire report, part local reporter trying to spice up a story. Mal scanned the lead for details as to where Owsen fit in with the murder. His eyes came down to a name he hadn't seen in a number of years, the civilian identity of one of the oldest Jihaddi at the time of the stand-down. "J-Rock?" Mal murmured, eyes going wide. He looked up at Minerva, who nodded grimly. "I raided the police database after I read that," she said. "There's no doubt about it, that is... was J-Rock." "Shit," said Mal, leaning back in his chair. "Shit shit -shit-." "At least now we know what Owsen's up to." Minerva offered. HOUSTON, TEXAS 03/13/2004 9:00 PM Owsen stood at the back door to the house and contemplated his options. Should he go in subtle, like a thief in the night, or should he be loud and cause lots of damage? Decisions, decisions. Owsen pondered, then kicked in the back door with enough force to shatter the lock, the doorknob and break the door clean off the hinges. "Honey, I'm hooome!" he called. Subtlety, Owsen thought wryly to himself, is highly overrated. The inside of the house was dark and quiet. Owsen stalked through the kitchen and towards the master bedroom. He was puzzled; the amount of noise he'd made coming in should have awakened somebody. Hell, the sound of the door breaking should've had every neighbor for three blocks calling the police. So where was BlackBlood? Owsen threw open the door to the master bedroom, only to find it empty. A quick check of the adjoining rooms indicated that the place was unoccupied. Stopping for a second in the living room, Owsen noticed a picture hanging over the fireplace. On closer inspection, it was a photo of the TRES and Doberman command staff during a meeting. From the look of things, it was taken before the X'hirjq invasion. So, this was BlackBlood's house, but the Maenad in question wasn't in. Owsen's rage, already simmering on low during the search, finally built to a boil as his frustration increased. Roaring, Owsen drew his sword and proceeded to rip apart everything in his path. Fragments of house and furniture flew everywhere as Owsen unleashed his frustrations. Finally, the faint sound of approaching sirens pierced the red veil of rage that covered Owsen's mind. He stopped in mid-demolish, listening to the sirens for a few seconds. Realizing that he'd overstayed his welcome, Owsen sheathed his sword and fled the house. ATHENA HEAVY INDUSTRIES KINGMAN, ARIZONA 03/13/2004 "Dammit Dee, are you working on that thing again?" Damocles yelled out of the shop. It was mostly a rote protest really, as it was her own free time, and it had been quite a while since she'd had an opportunity to tinker on the thing. "Yeah, I think I may be close to getting it to move. Maybe." She had the access panel open on the oversized thigh of what looked like a power armor suit sitting in front of the shop, and had her upper body disappearing into it. It was a pet project, trying to make a power armor suit workable with modern technology. She'd had the basic plan for two years, but working intermittently it had taken that long to assemble and troubleshoot. It made a great lawn ornament though. Really, she was just avoiding thinking about the maniac who'd trashed the gun expo. It had been a couple days and still no response had come. Patience and all that be damned, she wanted to know if there would be an answer coming at all, much less when it would come and what it would be. "Gah, fuck!" she swore as one of the hydraulic fittings broke and spewed hydraulic fluid all over the inside of the leg. Dee all but leapt out of the hatch as it creaked and started to sag. It shifted forwards and down a couple inches as the weight moved from being supported by the legs to supported by the gantry that had been set up to prevent her getting crushed to jelly under it. "Piece of shit!" she yelled as she aimed a kick at it, her boot clanging slightly off of the armor. It was still unnamed but she had taken to calling it the stupid metal bastard. She stormed into the shop. "Problems?" Damo quipped as he tossed her a bottle of water. Dee grabbed it out of midair with her artificial right hand and wiped her brow with the other. "Just fixing mistakes... should have gone and used Aeroquip fittings from the start. Now I'm slowly rooting out all the weak points in the thing but... well, at least I don't have to mop up hydraulic fluid in sand." "I know you wanted to get it done in time for the Knob Creek machinegun shoot..." "I will." She downed her bottle of water in one long pull. "What did the truck drop off?" "Lots of good stuff..." Damo seemed to be working on suppressing a grin. "Like what?" "Well... that." He gestured at the wooden crate on the floor, about six feet long and two wide. "Open it up and see?" The shit-eating grin told her something was up, but she ignored it and grabbed a crowbar. It was a few minutes to get the crate open but it was worth it. She gaped at the contents. "Hooooooly shit," she finally exclaimed. It was a big conglomeration of moving parts but the whole thing was vaguely cylindrical. The barrel extended out another three feet; obviously a gun, and a big one. A Pontiac M39 autocannon, she knew. 20mm, with a rate of fire of 25 rounds per second, mounted on various lightweight fighter aircraft. How the hell he'd gotten it was completely beyond her. "Pretty good, huh? I found someone who salvaged an F-100 Super Sabre back in the day, and got a deal. Think that'd work for your metal beastie?" "Hell yes. Can we get ammo?" "Yup. I was going to surprise you with it after the expo but..." Damo shrugged. "Five years since we decided to make this place." "Thereabouts." Dee looked embarrassed. "I have something for you too actually. It's, well... that chopper thing I was having you help work the kinks out of?" Her partner chuckled. "I thought that didn't seem like the normal sort of bike you made. And that much input from me was a clue too." "Speaking of bikes, did the last of the bits for my big project come in yet?" "Well, there's a box from Italy." Dee found the box and checked the address, grinning at the fact that it matched one of the powertrain labs for Ferrari's racing team. Opening the cardboard box revealed a black briefcase... inside that, set in individual recesses of impact absorbent foam were 10 pistons. Dee gingerly pulled one out and inspected it... a work of engineering art, precisely made from the finest materials with no expense spared. She'd traded some design work to the race team in exchange for them, and they were slated for a project of hers. "... wow. Hey... Damo?" "Right, I know, I'll take the unimportant calls for the next couple days." "Thanks a lot." NEW YORK CITY 03/09/2004 9:00 PM It had been something of a long day for KillJoy... it turns out that it wasn't all that easy to turn over half of one's bank account to a charity, plus the day before some press people had been asking him about all sorts of things... plans to come back to the WWF and things like that. He stayed in character for all of that, of course, and said that he'd be watching everything and would be back when he thought that there were other people who were his equal. Of course that wasn't true; he barely watched TV at all and even then not much besides the news. The dinner that had been provided at the meeting had been large, even for someone who ate as much as he did, and he sat in the hotel room that had been provided for him and got ready to go to bed early. He pushed the button on the TV first though, and the news came on. "... and in other news today, an unknown man attacked crowds at a Las Vegas gun expo with, according to reports, a sword. The number of peop..." he turned the TV back off as soon as he saw the picture of who it was. KillJoy then casually walked over to the end-table by his bed and picked up his cellphone, dialing the number of the lady who was in charge of his travel while he was with the WWF. "Hi, Jessie? I need a flight to Denver as soon as possible... yeah, I'd like this off-record. Thanks, the red-eye would be perfect... sorry to bother you this late. Thanks again." He hung up, and started packing the meager amount of belongings he'd brought with him. DENVER, COLORADO 03/10/2004 It was quite obvious to anyone looking at him wedged in the seat for the flight out that airliners were never intended for people of KillJoy's size. Nevertheless, he bore the flight without complaint. He'd slept in a cheap motel for a few hours afterwards, paid in cash. He'd ended up pulling a lot of money out of his bank account, actually... the kinds of things he was going to be buying would *NOT* be approved of by nearly anyone. The first though, was a truck. The one he found was an '80s Chevy, though he didn't bother to look into things even that far. There was more than a bit of body rust, but that really didn't matter. It ran, and ran well, plus the owner had been an avid off-roader so the truck had many modifications to that end. The owner was sort of annoyed at waking up that early in the morning, but being paid his asking price in cash allayed that. He even pretended to not recognize KillJoy, though the trailer the man was living in did mark him as likely to be a wrestling fan. Next were the remainder of the normal supplies; a heavy 4-wheeled cart, a water carrier, an independent air supply, a pair of heavy duty drills, flashlights, and "food" in the form of a couple boxes of concentrated energy bars. This seemingly random assortment of gear went into the bed of the pickup truck, and KillJoy roared out of the city, heading west. London Mines, Colorado was a ghost town, about an hour south-west from Denver. Opened in 1861 during the gold rush, it was now completely empty, nothing but a scattering of deserted buildings, thrown together out of rough planks. KillJoy pulled up to one of the buildings in particular, sitting over the main shaft. He got out of the truck and stood in the fierce wind for a moment before walking towards the building. It was less windy inside, but not much... over the years, there had been many gaps made in the wooden walls and obviously no one to repair them. The floorboards creaked ominously beneath his weight before he was onto bare rock. The entrance to the mine was easy to find, and finally out of the wind. KJ clicked on the flashlight every so often as he strode through the inky darkness of the mine shaft, but he could see no sign that anyone had ventured this far down inside. Subtle markers he had left years before told him this; a seemingly accidental scuff here and there on the main path standing out from where he'd cleaned his tracks more than four years ago. Finally, he found what he'd come for; a side-shaft that was blocked off by a series of large boulders, deep in the mine after an uncounted number of twists and turns. Each of them probably weighed in the neighborhood of 200 pounds, far more than any casual visitor would deal with even if there had been any. KillJoy walked up to them and started moving them, grunting with the exertion of moving almost a ton of rock in a matter of minutes. Eventually though, he got to what he'd come for. He opened the large duffle bag and turned on the flashlight to check. The beam of light played off of a smooth ceramic breastplate painted in camouflage. TRES-issue body armor, with the light blue and forest green highlights marking it as Omega squad. Pulling the armor out he checked his issue X-Rifle, which he probably wasn't supposed to have. It was loaded of course, and even had a pair of spare magazines, but there was no charge in them, the electricity long used up to keep the hydrogen fuel cooled. The grenade magazine *was* loaded, with a quartet of high explosive armor piercing rounds, but there had been no chance of sneaking any others out. Of course, there was the general issue JihadLinker, but it had no more charge than the plasma magazines for the rifle. Of more immediate use were the conventional firearms, both a pair of the large issue Heckler and Koch sidearms and a pair of semiautomatic shotguns cut down until they were a foot and a half long; oversized pistols to someone strong enough. The boxes of ammo for both of those were still sealed, and various other lesser tools were there as well. He grunted as if satisfied and exampled the axe leaning against the wall of the tunnel. A full sized fire axe, with an axehead on one side and a pick on the other and a steel haft, the edge seemed to be unaffected by the storage. KillJoy grunted again and zipped up the duffle bag before setting the axe on top of it and dragging it all back out into the sunlight, heedless of the fact that the path through the mine wasn't obscured any more as he wouldn't be using it again. He put the bag in the back of the truck with the axe underneath it, and drove off to his next stop. "Is it too late to get something to eat? I'm starving." KillJoy was at the Buford Saloon, pretty much a small, dingy bar. Not that he was here for the food or ambiance. "Nah, I can do that. Whaddya need?" The guy behind the bar was more than a bit on the side of obese, and was wearing a flannel jacket over a grey shirt. A shaggy grey beard covered his face, and he was wearing a faded black baseball cap. He didn't seem to take any note of the giant who had walked into his bar as anyone special. "Two of the half-pound burgers, fries, and a coke." "Shit, you are hungry... gimme a bit on that." The man started up the grill and got to work as KillJoy glanced around the bar. It was completely empty other than the two of them. "You Eddie?" The man glanced back. "I know you? Big bastard like you I'd remember." "Are you?" There was a slight edge in KillJoy's tone, and Eddie chose to not push things. "Yeah, that's me... why?" he replied, a little nervously. "I need some stuff from you." "Who the hell are you, feds? Cops? You have to tell me if you are, you know, it's entrapment if you lie about that." "Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici. Omega." Eddie froze where he stood, and KillJoy helpfully made flipping motions with his hand to remind him of the burgers. "I thought all you fuckers retired," he commented after a few moments of silence aside from the sound of sizzling meat. "Some more than others. Or are you unable to get fireworks anymore?" "Do you have any bonafides?" "I've got an X-Rifle in the truck, plus a couple mags and issue body armor in my size. That work?" "Yeah. Yeah, I can still get stuff," he replied as he set a pair of plates on the table in front of KillJoy. KJ quickly got to work on the food as Eddie cleaned up. "What do you need?" "M118 Composition 4 blocks. I need two cases; 40 of them, and don't tell me you can't get a hold of them. Also, a bunch of commercial-grade stuff... blasting gelatin or the like, around 200 pounds. Blasting caps too." He started devouring his second burger. "Holy shit. I'm not even going to ask what for... you guys don't have a line of credit anymore you know, even if you were good backers." KillJoy pulled out the wad of money he hadn't spent and set it on the counter as he ate, a fat sheaf of hundred dollar bills. "Two more of those when you deliver." "Two days." "Of course. See you then." OUTSIDE BLANCA MOUNTAIN COSTILLA COUNTY, COLORADO 03/12/2004 1:00 PM The pickup truck was starting to make funny noises, which maybe was why the owner had sold it in the first place. It had been a drive of quite a few miles, over broken mountainous terrain, so it was understandable. And, in the end, it didn't matter at all. KillJoy stopped the truck and got out, unpacking the drill from the back. It was a hard couple hours of work making a line of holes in seemingly arbitrary locations, but eventually it was done. He carefully filled the holes with charges of blasting gelatin and set up blasting caps and fuses for the whole system... before finally lighting the sucker off at around 4pm. When they were built, it would have been nearly impossible to get into any of the access tunnels to the Mt. Blanca stronghold of VRDET. Things changed though, when much of the surrounding area was collapsed to seal the base. In this particular instance, there was a slope near one of the tunnels, a ravine actually, with much of the rock covering protecting the tunnel having been eroded. The charges exploded and separated that chunk of the landscape, sending yet more rock and dirt sliding downhill. Gravity cleared the debris out of the way more efficiently than bulldozers would have. Of course, that was nowhere near enough to get close to the tunnel. It would take at least three more sets of charges. Even before the landslide from the first blast had stopped, KillJoy was working on boring the next set of holes. INSIDE BLANCA MOUNTAIN 1:02 PM Aris put down the instructions and stared at the half-repaired fuel cycler. "Damn," she muttered. "So much broken stuff, so little of it actually my fault." The diagnostics, at least, were complete. She didn't need to putter around in the computer any longer to determine what the problem was. She just needed to rebalance the loading chute and adjust the pin widths, and reconnect three circuit boards. It wouldn't take very long, but she'd been working all day and her head hurt. "Shower first, I think," she said. "Then finish this." She'd gotten back into the habit of talking to herself, too. "Warning," the base computer announced. That startled her. "What?" "Warning," the computer repeated in the inflectionless female voice that was all the backup AI could handle. "Seismic activity detected just offsite of Blanca Mountain." Aris scowled. "Okay, what flavor of seismic activity? Do you mean explosions?" "Explosions detected." "Great." Aris headed to the stairs, taking the steps two at a time until she reached her office. "Show me," she said, plopping down in her chair and tweaking her monitor. The monitor displayed a graphic interpretation of the blast, its force, and its epicenter. The results didn't make Aris any happier. "That's... right above the garage access tunnel, isn't it?" "Yes." "Someone's trying to break in." The computer didn't answer. "Are there video cameras in that tunnel?" "Confirmed. Three cameras operable." "What's the status?" "Standby status." "Okay, bring them to active. Hey, what security did Mal leave down there?" "Maximum security systems active." "Great." Aris shook her head. "Well, whatever it is, hopefully it'll convince our friend to give up." 03/13/2004 2:00 AM It had been quite a bit of work to crack open the access tunnel, even with most of the work being done by high explosives. The last of the blasting gelatin was setup to collapse the tunnel behind him. Now, wearing his body armor and KillJoy made ready to head down the tunnel. Most of the weaponry and gear was on the heavy duty 4-wheeled cart pulled behind him, only the pistols and shotguns being in holsters attached to his armor. This was fortunate, as all the rest would have been rather bulky. But it would have been well into the realms of the absurd to carry all of his supplies in a backpack, considering that he not only had enough powerbars for 3-4 days, 5 gallons of drinking water and a 100 cubic foot capacity air tank, but also 80 pounds of C4 plastic explosive, in 2 pound blocks. Of course there would be security systems, thus the preparation. The initial hole in the side of the tunnel seemed to have knocked out a few cameras and things around it, but there hadn't seemed to be much else in that section of tunnel. KillJoy was being careful to watch for more though as he unrolled the fuse for the charges at the entrance, but it seemed to be a harmless section. He lit the fuse and a matter of a few seconds later there was a crump of the explosion, his ears popping from both the explosion and the rock filling in that part of the tunnel. Continuing to watch for traps, he pulled his cart through the tunnel. There was plenty of room, as it was around ten feet diameter with a flat floor. A slight bend in the tunnel, probably to go around some terrain feature, and he came to a blast door. Solid steel and completely unmarred by the passage of time, it must have been several inches thick and looked like it would be impassable. After knocking on it a few times with his fist and listening to the reverberations, he went back to the cart and started precisely packing explosive on it. "Security systems engaged." Aris put down the welding torch and frowned. "What security systems?" "Hangar tunnel security systems engaged." Aris stood, brushed her hands off on her lab coat, and headed up to her office. "What's happening?" A display of the hangar tunnel came up, with a big blinking red box labeled "1". "Blast Door 34 Closed," flashed a warning right underneath it. "Any chance I can see what countermeasures are in that big red box?" "Classified," the computer said. Aris spelled out her name, rank, and personal code. No dice. "Thanks, Mal," she grumbled. "How many blast doors are there?" "70," the computer answered. Aris blinked a couple times. "So there are 36 more in between this guy and us?" "Affirmative." "Fine. Tell me if he gets through this one." */ The Seatbelts "Gotta Knock A Little Harder" _Future Blues_ /* Striding through the smoke and debris thrown up by the explosion, KillJoy immediately smelled something beyond the normal acrid fumes from the explosive. Gas poured out from hidden ports on the ceiling; tear gas he would have realized if he were affected by it or if he cared. "Attention intruder," came a synthesized voice from a hidden speaker. "Unauthorized entry is prohibited. Further incursion will be met with deadly force, up to and including nerve agents. This is your final warning." KillJoy kept striding forwards as the voice spoke, ignoring it and the gas. There was a sharp corner, and then an electrical whirring sound. The tunnel after the next bend had several cylindrical shapes pop out of the ceiling and walls; his first shotgun slug impacted one before it had completely extended and made it freeze there, but the others immediately started shooting. Strobing muzzle flashes lit the tunnel for the first time in years, a deafining cacophony as machinegun fire raked the area. KillJoy stood his ground, ignoring the bullets whining past or smacking divots into the concrete tunnel around him as he fired his left hand shotgun now, hitting a turret in the joint between the body and gun. The volume of bullets was reduced but tracking closer, now rounds actually impacting KillJoy himself, first one in the shoulder and another in the right leg and several in his abdomen. None penetrated the armor and none prevented his next shot, eliminating the targeting sensor on the next turret. The final turret managed to pound five more rounds into his torso armor before both guns vomited lead at it and silenced it. The first of the shotgun shells bounced off of the concrete floor of the tunnel at about the same instant the final turret was silenced and the others followed shortly, the whole firefight having taken less than a second. The speaker ironically gave another warning, this one no more useful than the last. "Attention intruder. Deadly force has been authorized and VX is now being released. Have a nice day." More gas was vented out of ceiling ports as KillJoy fed spare shells into his guns and walked down the tunnel, oblivious to excessive amounts of one of the most deadly chemical weapons invented by man filling the tunnel. Aris stripped off the heavy chemical protection gloves and adjusted her monitor. "He's made it through another door?" "Affirmative." "Do we have any camera footage yet?" "Affirmative." Aris sighed. "Display camera footage." A blurry few seconds of video played. Aris watched it a few times, then froze a frame and ran enhancement. "Well, at least it's not Owsen. Run this face through the entire Jihad and look for a match, starting with VRDET and then TRES, the Doberman Empire, and all the others in order of greatest enrollment at time of disbandment." Aris put her feet up on the desk and rubbed her eyes as the computer fed through the data. After a minute, she sincerely wished Minerva was still onsite. "Match found." "Whozit?" "Lieutenant KillJoy, TRES Corps, Omega Squadron." "One of Felton's." Aris stared at the tunnel display and the big blinking red box. "He'd probably be mad if I let this guy die. Can I turn off the intrusion countermeasures from here?" "Negative." "Why not?" "Countermeasures cannot be disrupted from this workstation." "Can they be turned off at ALL?" "Negative." Aris sighed. "Dammit. I'm going to finish loading the caustic and see if the Gate turns on. How many more doors does this guy have to break through?" "Five." "He should be here by this evening, then. Right. I'll tell Mal." Hours passed. How many were unimportant, really; the only breaks in the tedium being every hundred yards or so when he came to another blast door and had to blow it open. He had come to a section that was literally laced with claymores, their tripwires crisscrossing the area in an impassable maze. After pausing to eat a couple of the wretched tasting energy bars and drinking some water, he set about disarming them. All of them in fact, placing the dozen plastic covered fragmentation mines on the cart as well. It was another right angle bend before the next blast door, obviously more to make things harder to break in than anything else. Like so many times before he set the charges and backed off to a safe distance of 20 yards before lighting it off. A *CLANG* and the door had a rectangular hole blasted out of it. He slipped the mirrored goggles he always wore down over his eyes for no reason he knew and strode through the hole. A burst of flames washed over him, not just flames but napalm. He very quickly ducked backwards through the hole and threw his shotguns back away from him but a further twist in the plans happened when a heavy machinegun turret, much large caliber than the previous ones, opened up on him. The thumb-sized bullets added insult to injury by punching through his body armor in several places... some of them finally being stopped by his unnaturally tough skin, but two continuing on, one into his left lung. Very concerned with all of this, KillJoy propelled himself around on the ground to try to smother the jellied petroleum flames coating his body, eventually succeeding. Grumbling, he got up and dusted himself off, poking a finger in the holes in his body armor. His blood was dissolving the ceramic slightly around the edges of the holes, but both were already sealed over. He coughed a few times, spitting out some gobs of blood and pieces of bullet fragment, already starting to dissolve. He coughed again to clear the last of the blood and retrieved the shotguns, before taking the X-Rifle off of the cart and racking a grenade into the action... */ Leonard Cohen "Everybody Knows" _Pump Up The Volume_ /* SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 03/14/2004 4:30 AM The Undisclosed Location was one of who knew how many smoky little hole-in-the-wall bars scattered around the greater Seattle area. The bar was reasonably well-appointed, keeping with the owner's desire to allow the patrons to have a drink without anybody bothering them. It also allowed the patrons to conduct business that might not go over as well in the harsh light of day, or the overly homey lighting of the upscale, yuppified bars elsewhere in the city. The owner was, in fact, concluding a bit of business just along those lines when the early-morning hum of activity was interrupted. A man dressed in a razor-creased black suit - looking far too sharp and confident for four-thirty on a Sunday morning - stepped through the front door and into the glare of the pinlight which illuminated the Location's only well-lit area. The bar's owner looked over the suit and came to a certain conclusion. "Guys," he said, turning back to his guests, "we're going to have to finish this later. I think," he added, "I have a visitor." The two men nodded and got up. As soon as they passed through the light and out of the bar, the suit turned around from his spot at the bar and, smiling like he was in love with the world, ambled up to the owner's table. The man in the suit slid into the chair and locked eyes with his quarry for a brief second. "Hello, Mr. Yearnshaw." The man sitting opposite him kept his face carefully neutral as he replied, "No." "Associates of mine asked me to contact you," the suit continued, blithely ignoring the denial. "I believe you were... formerly acquainted? They have a job for you." Yearnshaw shook his head. "War's over," he muttered. "The job is something they feel you are... -uniquely- qualified for, given your particular talents and past." The suit flashed a quick smile as he said it, noting the sudden glimpse of irritation in his target's eyes. "What is it about Illumination," growled Yearnshaw, "that affects the ears so you people can't hear things like 'no' or 'get the hell out, you son of a bitch' anymore?" He sighed. "This is about Las Vegas?" he inquired. The suit nodded, his smile slightly strained after Yearnshaw's outburst. "Good, you can still keep yourself informed. This is exactly why my... associates requested I contact you." The suit's smile vanished again. "And please, this isn't a place for language like that." Yearnshaw suppressed a smirk. The suit and his people never liked it when he used the 'I' word in a public place. "The answer's still no." "My associates are offering compensation," the suit pressed, "compensation similar to that which you received for your previous service." He pulled a PDA out of his coat pocket and placed it on the table in front of Yearnshaw. "Quite handsome compensation really, for the scale of the service my associates need performed." Yearnshaw picked up the PDA and browsed through the files stored there. The "compensation" was indeed quite handsome, money and technology that wasn't available to most militaries, much less on the street. He studied the information on the device for several minutes, half of which he spent trying to make the suit sweat. /Max,/ Yearnshaw sent on his communications implant, /you get all this?/ /It appears viable,/ replied Yearnshaw's AI companion, /and it is highly probable that it would have at least one immediate benefit./ /I thought so./ Yearnshaw grumbled mentally, keeping his thoughts hidden behind a mask of blank concentration. /These bastards always did know where to come at a person./ Yearnshaw put the PDA back on the table and slid it over to the suit, who was still waiting expectantly for an answer. "This could be worth my time after all," he said. "Just what is it that the Five want?" The suit twitched slightly as Yearnshaw invoked the name of the true rulers of the planet, and in doing so chalked up another score on his imperturbable facade. "It's a small thing, really," the suit replied smoothly. "My associates would like you to contact a former colleague of yours. He has closed their normal channels of communication, and they wish to press the issue." The suit picked up the PDA, twiddled the controls briefly, then set it back on the table. Yearnshaw picked it up again to find, instead of columns of text on the display, a single still picture of a bearded man. Yearnshaw goggled at the sight for an instant, then let out a short bark of laughter. "Him?" he demanded, "You've actually -lost contact- with -him-?" He handed the PDA back to the suit, who swiftly pocketed it. "Yeah, sure. I'll do it." The suit nodded and stood up. "The issue is somewhat... time sensitive," he said. "My associates will want a report within a week." And without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the bar. Yearnshaw sat there for a few minutes, sipping his beer and apparently lost in thought. /Is Stack still at Spiral, Max?/ Yearnshaw inquired of his AI. /I'm going to need some updated intel./ /Ms. Sewell is still employed by the Spiral Corporation,/ Max acknowledged, /though she may be reluctant to provide any data./ /Of course she'll be reluctant, but she'll still come through. Get in touch with her./ Yearnshaw ordered as he went back to the bar for a fresh pint and to tell the bartender to keep people from bothering him, the beginnings of his plan already starting to gather. OAKLAND TRIBUNE NEWSROOM OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 3/13/04 2:00 PM Miranda Delgado returned to her desk, throwing her notebook the last few inches onto her blotter and sighed. She hated her job. Well, that wasn't quite true, she didn't hate the job, per se, it's just that she hated the drudgery of covering grand openings and other events of that nature. Even getting to interview the former California governor turned mayor of Oakland, a normally interesting and delightful task, had seemed like simple drudgery today. Delgado wondered if the events of Tuesday had contributed to this latest round of 'I hate my job'. It was true, being a newspaper reporter was nowhere near as interesting or fun as being a Jihad intelligence officer had been, but it paid the bills. And, thankfully, her editor was pretty good when Delgado called randomly and said, "I won't be in this afternoon; I'm chasing a lead." as long as she made her assigned deadlines. This suited Delgado perfectly, because it allowed her the freedom to react to crises that needed the attention of the Ancient and Honorable Order. She looked back down at her notebook and the rest of her workspace. She wasn't sure how she was going to balance this latest crisis with her job. Shelton was flying in, supposedly for a sudden business trip, but Delgado suspected that was simply Shelton trying to cover his tracks. His wife didn't know about his Jihad career, and while Delgado approved of the secrecy, it made juggling this crisis that much harder. She sighed again and sat down. To relax herself, she decided to check the AP wire for any interesting stories, and so she cleared the screen saver and sat down to poke. Usually, after poking at some of those stories, it helped her clear her head enough to be able to write even the most boring of stories. It was a comfort that, while the world was falling apart at the seams, it was doing it under its own power, and not that of B'harne and the Lyrans. She poked through the feed. It was the usual assortment of crime, politics, and human interest stories she had come to expect. It made Delgado feel somewhat better that the world was still as predictable as ever. She scrolled through the list of stories when one jumped out at her -- "Mystery slaying in Austin baffles police". It wasn't so much that the headline was so unusual, it was just that the synopsis of the story contained a name she knew. It took a second before she placed it, and she stared at it in horror, willing the name on the page not to be the name she knew. The name stubbornly stayed the same. Delgado shook her head and read the article the feed attached to, trying not to let the emotions she was feeling show on her face. A grand opening wasn't the sort of thing to feel shock and horror over, after all. But if the other shoe had dropped Tuesday -- then this meant awful news for the home team, of course. She printed a copy of the story for Shelton, and then settled down to write. It wasn't her best work, she thought, but who would expect one's best work in the mood she was in? The world needed saving, again, and the only ones who knew and were in a position to do something about it were a newspaper reporter and an IT consultant. It would have to do. KINCAID'S BAYHOUSE JACK LONDON SQUARE OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 6:00 PM Delgado walked into the restaurant, scanning for Shelton. The maitre'd stopped her and she explained who she was looking for. The maitre'd smiled at her, and escorted her back to the table that Shelton was occupying. Well, Shelton and another man, whom Delgado instantly recognized as Curtis. What was Curtis doing here? She was struck once again by the contrast between the two men. Shelton was tall, with black hair and an angular face. In contrast, Curtis was short with a rounded face, grey-haired, and starting to go bald on top of it. It struck Delgado than none of them were particularly young anymore. She refrained from sighing at the thought. Curtis looked up and smiled at her. "Good evening, Miranda," he said, with a bit of a southern drawl to his speech. "'Tis good to see you again, it's been a while." Delgado took a seat across from the two of them. "It's good to see you too, Curtis. And you, Shelton. I take it you called Curtis after all." Shelton stiffened a bit before speaking. "I wanted his opinion. You and I didn't have a clue what to do," he said in that familiar baritone Delgado had been so used to hearing in the offices at TRES. "Not that we have any other information." "We don't?" Delgado asked. "What about McAllister?" "The number was disconnected," Shelton said. "I couldn't get a hold of him. Youngman was, as I predicted, not useful to this situation. And no, I asked him if he'd heard from McAllister, and nothing." Delgado frowned. This was even worse. Did she dare depress them all with her news? Probably best to put it on the table so that Shelton and Curtis had all the facts. "I hate to be the bearer of more bad news," she said. "But I found this on the AP wire today." She handed the piece of paper over to Shelton, and watched Curtis pull out a pair of glasses so that he could read it as well. Shelton, who had never been quite as good at hiding his expressions as Delgado was, had a look of sudden horror on his face before he could hide it. Curtis took the piece of paper and read it himself, only frowning slightly. Shelton took a sip of water. Finally he said, "So Admiral J-Rock is no longer among the living." Delgado nodded. Shelton looked around the table. "Damn, I wish I had some wine now," he said. "That's a bitter pill to swallow." Curtis put down the printed article. "I am still not seeing where y'all think I should be involved in this," he said. Delgado glared across the table at Curtis. "Yes, that's right, he wasn't a Dobe, so thus you don't have to care. Thanks, Curtis." Curtis looked up at her and blinked, his eyeglasses magnifying his eyes. He looked puzzled. "That didn't come off quite right. My condolences to you two and to what's left of TRES, but so far this involves two TRES officers, neither of whom hold commissions in the DE, and thus I'm not sure why Shelton called me the other day. My apologies." Shelton sighed. "I called you, Curtis, because neither Delgado nor I had a clue what to do. I still don't, and this just makes it worse." Curtis looked at the article again. "Well, let's start with the obvious question. What makes you so sure that Admiral J-Rock's death is directly attributable to Lord Owsen? That's the question that needs to be answered before we can get anywhere." "Maenads are hard critters to take out. You know that, Curtis." Delgado thought for a moment. "I mean, their mission is taking out Lyrans, and you know Lyrans are tough critters. And if it wasn't Owsen who took J-Rock out, then we have to figure out what *did*. And frankly, that possibility scares me." "Me as well," Shelton said. "And we know Maenads are capable of taking one another out, so Owsen as J-Rock's killer would make sense. And there's a bit of what Delgado said. If it isn't Owsen, then what *is* it? Are the Lyrans back?" Curtis twitched at the mention of the Lyrans. "There's a scary thought -- there's no way we could take on the Lyrans now. But there's no evidence that an invasion's on. I think we'd notice. So, I accept your hypothesis, but that brings me right back to my first question. I don't see my place here. What do y'all want me to do? Because right now, with this not involving the Dobes, I'd like to get back to Atlanta and my work." "We have to do something," Delgado said. "We have to get rid of Owsen. Or at least find out why he killed J-Rock. Because something tells me, it's a guess based on limited evidence, but Owsen's after Jihaddi for some reason. Sure, it's J-Rock today. But what if it's Samhain tomorrow, Curtis? What if it's you or me?" Shelton looked frightened. Curtis took off his reading glasses, folded them neatly and put them back in their case, and then looked back at Delgado. "Those are all hypotheticals, Miranda. I can't do anything unless I have real proof that there's a threat to Dobe personnel. Y'all agreed to that when we set up the Order." "Fine. I'll keep that in mind the next time some Dobe goes crazy and goes after another Dobe," Delgado snapped. "Shelton? Are you in?" Shelton's eyes darted around the restaurant. Finally, he started fiddling with the fork on the table. Delgado waited for him to say something, and Shelton finally spoke up. "No," he said. "I have a wife and a six month old daughter, and neither of them know about this. I can't put my life on the line at the moment." Delgado sighed. "Fine, fine. This is only the biggest threat to everything we've worked to keep so quiet and neither of you want to do anything about it. I, on the other hand, am not going to sit around idly. You two just sit quietly and go back to your lives." Curtis looked up at her. "So, you're going to get a sniper rifle and go after Owsen?" Delgado stood. "No. But I'll find some way. You two enjoy dinner, I have things to do." She grabbed the printout that she had brought to the meeting and left her two fellow intelligence officers sitting there blinking, wondering what fire had gotten into Delgado as of late. Delgado frankly didn't care. Something had to be done about this Owsen situation, and she was the only one who wanted to bother. As she walked to her car, her mind flashed back to Wraith worrying about something about to happen a week ago. Wraith had mentioned having another Jihaddi's phone number in that talk. Who was it? One of the VR folks -- right, Malaclypse. She'd stop in after church tomorrow, since she would be in Berkeley for that, and see if Wraith had a way to contact him. She hated bringing non-Intel officers into this matter, but it was over her head. Way over. But something had to be done. BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 03/14/2004 2:00 PM It was a quiet Sunday afternoon at the new home of Katze and Josh. Katze was in the room they'd established as the library listening to Selection Sunday basketball news and working industriously on her thesis before she headed out to Colorado for the afternoon. Josh was in the living room, making his way through the Sunday paper section by section. The rain was pouring down outside, which made both of them happy that they were safe inside. There came a knock at the door. Josh looked up from where he was reading the paper, and went to answer it. There stood Miranda Delgado, soaking wet from the downpour. Josh quickly let her in and had her sit down. "I'll go get Katze." Katze came down rather quickly. "You hear the news? Cal women's hoops got the five seed in the East." "Not bad. Not as good at the three seed we found back in 1996, but not bad. What's the chances?" "Hmmm. Well, Tennessee got the one seed in that division, so not good. But I think we can hang on until then." "Figures. Vols got us in 1996 too." "Don't have to tell me that. Granted, part of that might have been the power forward sleepwalking that day." "Yeah, yeah, you'd think some officer of some secret paramilitary organization had kept her out all night or something." Katze smiled at Delgado. That had been both the start of her Jihad career and her friendship with Delgado, and she was appreciative of both. But Delgado probably didn't come over unannounced in the rain for this conversation. "I'm guessing you didn't really come over here to talk about the state of Cal woman's hoops." "You're right. I didn't. But..." Delgado looked around. "I hate asking Josh to leave, it's his house too, but..." "I know about the Jihaddi who went nuts," Josh said, without looking up at his paper. Delgado blinked and then glared at Katze. "Why does he know that?" Katze sighed. "Miranda, I am going to marry the guy, which means that I think he's capable of keeping his mouth shut. Besides, it isn't just you Intel folks who can identify faces -- Owsen did pin my ensign pins on." "Okay. And you know that Admiral J-Rock's no longer among the living?" It was Katze's turn to look shocked. "Wow. Fuck. Owsen?" "Can you think of anybody else that might be able to take out a Maenad?" "Right. Gee, I hope Mal knows this latest." "Mal's on this?" "Yeah, I drug him into it back on the ninth. Don't worry, I'm sure we've got everything under control." "That's what I'm afraid of." Delgado got up and paced across the living room. "The problem is, this is too big for the Ancient and Honorable Order; we've been panicking since Tuesday, and Shelton and Curtis finally decided it's over our heads. So I need to get you non-intel folks in on this. As much as I really don't want to trust you, I'm going to have to hope. Because somebody has to do something. But..." "But?" "If things get too hot, Wraith, I want in on it." "Okay, then. There's a rudimentary JLink network back up, I want you on it. If we can use you, I'll get in touch." "Best I can ask for, I suppose." BLANCA MOUNTAIN 3/14/2004 4:00 PM Aris' linker rang as she was surveying a VTOL aircraft in the hangar, the only major VRDET vehicle still in storage. She unclipped it from her belt, checked the incoming signal, and answered, "Hey, Katze. What's up?" "Nothing major. I just thought I'd come by and see how you were doing." "Sounds great," Aris said. "I haven't actually seen a human being for far too long." Pause. "Well, close enough to count, right?" Katze chuckled. "Close enough to count. How's the Gate coming along?" "It's calibrating right now. Call it two more days to fully functional, but all the mechanics are in place. Oh, and you know, you're a TRES-ie... we've got a Lieutenant KillJoy on his way into the base." "Hmm. I don't know him personally, but... what do you mean on his way into the base?" "He's breaking in through the access tunnel to the garage. So far he's managed to get past all the security stuff Mal put there, whatever it is." Aris could hear Katze facepalming. "Aris... why didn't you just ask Mal or me to come down and turn off the defenses?" Blink. "That never actually occurred to me." "Argh. Okay, I'll be there in a minute." "I'm in the hangar." "Okay." Katze signed off the other end, and Aris clipped the 'Linker back to her belt. "Why don't I just turn those off now," Katze said from behind her a few seconds later. "Katze!" Aris said, turning around and sweeping her CO into a hug. "Urk," Katze said, then "Good to see you too, Aris. How about getting me to a console so our Lieutenant KillJoy doesn't get messily dead?" "He's been taking good care of himself so far," Aris said, putting Katze's feet in contact with the floor again. "Still, we should be polite to our guests," Katze said, heading for one of the small desk clusters in the central pathway of the hangar. "And the less of our security he destroys, the better." "Point." Katze woke the computer and typed in her identification and an override. "There, that should take care of the actual defenses. We'll need to go upstairs to open the door." Aris gestured overdramatically at the stairs. Katze grinned and led the way up. Another set of charges crumped, blowing caustic chemical smoke past KillJoy as he stood waiting, munching on a powerbar. He swallowed the remainder and kicked the tottering segment of steel over; he was doing his best to conserve explosive now, as even after sitting and picking the steel BBs out of the claymore mines, he was just about out. The steel *CLANGED* into the tunnel and he stepped out, snapping off a shotgun blast and the turret that had just started to extend... but for some reason, that turret and the others retracted back away. Not trusting them at all, he fired into each one in turn as he passed and came to yet another door. He walked back to the cart and took one of the claymores, picking steel BBs out of it with a leatherman pliers as he walked back towards the latest blast door, and was about to place it when the door clunked loudly and started opening. "Good afternoon Rear Admiral Brenner, Commander Merquoni," he said before the door had completely opened. "I apologize for the mess, though the tunnel is resealed back where I got in." The sight that greeted the two women when the door opened the rest of the way was staggering; a giant man, clad in body armor and festooned with guns who looked to have been through a war. His armor was pocked with bullet scars, some opening to reveal not the expected bloody results of projectiles but undamaged skin. His uniform was charred, and much of his hair was either gone or ragged, blackened ends. Still, he seemed in once piece, and he cracked a grin as he added, "Sorry it took so long to get here." OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 03/14/2004 4:30 PM Miranda Delgado dug through the boxes she hadn't bothered to unpack in several years. She thought it funny, really, how she'd been quietly helping coordinate what was left of the Jihad, but yet hadn't bothered to unpack the boxes she'd had shipped to California for fear that if she did, the Wyrm would return. And now, while the Wyrm himself wasn't back, Owsen was, and it didn't look good for the home team. Besides, she had to go through these boxes. Her Linker was buried somewhere in one of these boxes, along with everything else from her quarters at TRES. The last bit of packing had been done in a hurry, and she didn't quite remember in which box she put her Linker and the cabling to connect it to her computer. She pulled her jackknife out of her pocket and slit the first box open, smiling that the box was addressed to Wraith. She hadn't had a Bay Area apartment at that point yet, and Wraith did, so they just shipped everything there. And when she'd gotten a place, she'd just put these boxes in the closet, counting on them to protect them all by staying contained. It had to have been luck that the Linker was in the first box she opened, and all its cabling contained in a small container next to it. First order of business, she decided, was to get a charge back on it. Four years in a box, even though she made sure it was off before tucking it in, probably meant that there was no charge left on the thing. So she drug it in the kitchen and sat it next to her laptop, letting it charge as she made her dinner. As she sat down at the table, the Linker beeped as if she had waiting messages. That surprised Delgado, the only person who knew she was on the network was Wraith, and Wraith would just pick up the phone and call her. She flicked the Linker on, dinner forgotten, and flipped through the messages -- it looked mostly like random chatter from Wraith and Malaclypse and Captain Houben and Commander Merquoni. She thought of adding her two cents, but decided it was better to watch at the moment and only make her presence known when Wraith asked her to join in. She flipped upwards to see the earlier messages, and was surprised to see one marked "ATTN: INTEL" with a date stamp of that prior Wednesday. That seemed strange. Who would invoke Intel when they knew there was nobody on the link? The name attached to the mail -- Dee Greist -- wasn't ringing any bells with her, but TRES folks usually attached their rank, which probably meant she wasn't TRES. Still, it was interesting it was on the link, and Delgado went ahead and opened it. The first thing she noticed was that there were picture attachments. She could view them on the little screen of her Linker, but it was probably best to hook it in on a bigger screen. She pulled the cables out and quickly hooked everything together. Delgado was slightly surprised the network could still recognize when a computer didn't have the proper software and install it, but tonight she wouldn't worry about it. It saved having to dig her old laptop out. She pulled the pictures up, and was shocked to find they were pictures of Grand Admiral Owsen at the Vegas Gun Show. This Dee Greist person must have been there and had thought to grab a few shots. Delgado whistled as she flipped through them. If there had been doubt before, it was erased now -- Grand Admiral Owsen was definitely back. And one of the photos had a clear shot of the sword as well, and Delgado gasped. It looked like the Barney Slayer. But the Jihad had the Barney Slayer, or so Delgado seemed to remember, and Owsen's blade was the wrong colour for it to match. She looked closer at the sword, and frowned a bit more. She enlarged the photo a bit to check her suspicions. It was hard to tell from the grain of the compression, but it looked like there was writing on the blade? Did the Slayer have writing on it? She couldn't remember, it had been a very long time since she'd seen anything but pictures. But this, added with J-Rock's death, meant that things were very bad for the home team indeed. She saved the shots, and decided that Wraith couldn't wait to know about this. She started to go hunt for her cellphone when she realized she had a much better way to contact Wraith connected to her computer. And sure enough, Wraith responded right away. "Katze." "Hey, Wraith, this is Delgado. Got something for you." "Is it important? I'm kinda in the middle of something." "Well, I found some pictures of Owsen sent to the intel alias, and you might want to take a look at them. What happened to the Slayer?" There was some silence on the other end, and then Wraith responded, almost as if she was hedging, "It went with JPV when they left." "You sure?" "I said goodbye to it before it left." Delgado frowned. It wasn't like Wraith to out and out lie, she tended to tell as much of the truth as she thought she could get away with. And something smacked of 'not the whole truth' here. "Why do I suspect there's a piece of the story you're not telling me?" Wraith sighed. "Believe me or don't believe me. I don't care. But yes, for your information, there are some things I know that you don't, and you know damn good and well there are things I'm not supposed to tell -- even to you, even now. Let me get to a computer and I'll have you throw those pictures at me." "Where are you, anyway?" "Blanca. Give me five minutes, and I'll be back. Turn on video when I ring you." Katze clicked her linker shut and looked at Aris. "That was my friend Delgado. I have to go upstairs and do something. If you need me, I'll be in my old office." Aris looked at Katze, and then back at their guest. KillJoy stood there, rather unperturbed despite what he'd been through that afternoon. Aris said, "What do you want me to do with him?" "Ummm...good question," Katze said. "I don't quite know. Keep him busy or something, I really need to deal with this." Katze closed the door to her office, and breathed a deep breath. Things were dusty in here, but they were still familiar, and it was hers. She collapsed in the chair, flicked on the terminal, and adjusted the video camera. She then rung Delgado. Delgado appeared in the upper right corner of her monitor, the kitchen behind her, and an ignored dinner off to the side of the picture. "Whatcha got for me?" Delgado reached forward, towards where her keyboard was. "Check this out." A window popped up on Katze's computer, in which the message with forwarded attachments appeared. Katze pulled up the pictures and just stared for a second before finally muttering, "N'kanyu tiri, we're really in it deep." "Wraith?" "Your kitchen clear? As a landing space, I mean?" "Yeah. What's up?" "Something I need to discuss with you, but I don't want to do it over the Linkers." Delgado blinked. "Okay..." "Coming through..." Katze shut the connection down, locked her terminal, and leapt, landing in Delgado's kitchen. She watched Delgado blink. "I'll never get used to you doing that," Delgado said, "even though I know what you're capable of." Katze smiled. "Good. It means you're thinking of me as a mundane, which is always good." She sat down across from Delgado. "What I'm about to tell you...you're technically not supposed to know. But it might help things make more sense." "So why are we in it deep?" Katze took a deep breath and said, "We suspected the other half of the Slayer ended up with Charn'El, but we couldn't prove it. Not until now." "Err, slow down, Wraith, what do you mean 'other half ended up with Charn'El'? There's two...oh, no. No." "Yeah. That battle where Owsen died, in Pacifica? The Slayer was busted in half. The Maenads salvaged most of the blade, and that's what's with JPV. They couldn't find the hilt." Katze watched Delgado's facial expressions. They weren't usually this expressive, she noted. Delgado finally sputtered, "And you all chose to keep this a *secret*?" "Yes. I didn't find out until I found myself in the Adjunct's chair. And I reacted mostly the same way you just did." Delgado shook her head. "So now what?" "Now? I think we tell Mal." And the two friends and former Jihad officers looked at one another before Katze rose from the table. "I'll go tell Mal. You eat your dinner." Delgado looked down and blinked at the plate. When she looked back up, Katze was gone. SPIRAL BUILDING DENVER, COLORADO 6:00 PM MDT "This is a new complication." Mal dropped the photos on his desk, scattering color shots of Owsen's rampage all over the polished wood surface. "So that explains what happened to the rest of the Slayer, at least. Remarkable," he added thoughtfully. "I'd read the reports from JPV that the blade seemed to be regenerating, but I hadn't thought to extrapolate it to the hilt. We'd all thought that it went to the bottom of the ocean along with the rest of Pacifica. I wonder where it's been since then..." Katze frowned. "I thought it was obvious." "Not necessarily. Since we assumed the hilt sank with the island, it was possible that someone else recovered it. Though seeing as it's now in the hands of our erstwhile comrade..." Mal looked closely at one of the photos. He rummaged around his coat pocket for a second before pulling out a magnifying glass. "Hm," he hmmed, "this is interesting. Here, take a look at the blade, near the hilt." Mal offered the photo and the magnifying glass to Katze. The shot itself was a picture of Owsen in mid-swing. When Katze looked at the blade through the magnifying glass, faint lines and impressions could be seen running up the center of the blade, almost like... "Writing?" Katze said, glancing up at Mal. "So it would seem," Mal replied. "And I've seen that writing before." "Oh?" Mal nodded. "We recovered several books with writing just like that during the Pacifica mission." Katze blinked. "-Oh-. I guess that's confirmation." "Probably, though I'd like a second opinion, just to make sure my memory isn't going strange." Mal sighed. "Felton was the resident Lyran expert, I've only got the basics. Dammit, we're going to need him if this -does- turn out to be Lyran-related." He leaned back in his chair and looked at Katze. "Still no word?" "None at all. For all we know he's on the Moon." "Ah well." Mal thumbed through the photos again. "So where did we get these from? They're a hell of a lot better than the security videos." Katze blinked. "You know, I didn't think to look at who sent it; it came in to the Intel dead-drop alias, but beyond that..." Mal turned to the computer on his desk and quickly called up the mailbox for the dead-drop in question. "Well that's easily checked. Let's see, the mail came in the middle of the night on the 10th, lucky us that we'd gotten the network up then, huh? And our mystery witness is..." Mal trailed off. "Well," he said, "wasn't expecting that." "Huh?" "It's Dee." "Dee?" Katze blinked, trying to remember who Mal was talking about. The only Dee that she could remember was... "Wait a minute, Dee -Greist-? The quiet kid who hung out with R&D?" "The one and the same." Mal smiled. "Knowing Dee, she was shopping when the deal went down. Well," he said, opening his Linker's phone tools, "ought to let her know that her pictures are being put to good use." "If you're going to do that," said Katze, standing, "then I'm going to head back to Blanca and help Aris out with getting stuff working." Mal nodded absently, and Katze jumped back to the VRDET base. ATHENA HEAVY INDUSTRIES KINGMAN, ARIZONA 12:00 PM "About time some of the toys showed up," Dee muttered as she worked on cleaning grit out of the silencer baffles of one of the toys in question. It was a VSS Vintorez, a highly unusual Russian sniper rifle. Silenced and with a specially designed subsonic bullet, it was highly sought by special forces because unlike most weapons that had silencers grafted on later, it retained all the power of a real rifle. Unfortunately, some bastard hadn't cleaned this one in ages. Athena Heavy Industries had received a crate of half a dozen of the sniper rifles and half a dozen SR-3 Vikhrs, a very short assault rifles using the same round. There was also a lot of the special ammunition and magazines, which was fortunate as there was nothing close in this country. Best of all, it was even perfectly legal for Athena to receive them. She and Damo had immediately tested the things out, and one of the Vintorez rifles jammed incessantly... and now she knew why. "Look at this thing! They threw in a demo model. With the way the silencer is, I should just build a new one." "Not a bad idea anyway," Damocles commented from where he was assembling a custom pistol. "Baffle design's not bad but dated." "Yeah, point. Hm." She considered for a moment and shrugged. "Ah well, I'm going to the clean room to get a start on the engine now that the parts are all finished." "All right," Dee's partner replied absently. Dee stood up from the workbench and walked over to a heavy door set into part of the wall. She pulled open the latch and swung it open, walking into the first clean room. It resembled nothing so much as a small workshop; a steel workbench against one wall with tools all in their proper places, concrete floors, work lights, sink, and a few compressed air fittings. The only really unusual features were the heavy doors on either end, the filtered air circulating around, what looked like a dishwasher, and the impeccable cleanliness. Dee closed the first door and carefully washed her hands before opening the thing that looked like a dishwasher. It *was* a dishwasher actually, but modified to use a separate water source, one with additives such that it wouldn't rust anything. She carefully took engine parts out one by one, checking for any remaining dirt from machining, or any tiny imperfections before hand drying them and setting them on a metal cart. People might think of this sort of thing as obsessive, Dee thought as she stripped out of her shop coveralls and donned a set of disposable tyvek scrubs. They didn't produce as good of engines as she did though, she thought with a smirk, so they could think whatever they wanted. She pulled the inner door open and a series of fans came into action, blowing air down across the doorway to form a barrier to dust and dirt. The second room was a testament to the extent of her obsession with putting things together perfectly. A white cube, metal walls and concrete floor providing nowhere for dirt, parts, or spills to remain hidden. Fluorescent lights and vents ringed the top of the walls providing, she knew, the only air circulation when the door was shut. She held the room to tighter standards than many surgical suites, as much work as that was. Wheeling the cart of engine parts ahead of her, Dee closed the door and paused before wheeling it over to a fixture in the middle of the room. To this she bolted the engine block, threading bolts into it and then picking up a wrench from the workbench without needing to look. She returned it to the spot where she picked it up, a precisely aligned row of tools comprising exactly what was needed to assemble the engine, all of them clean enough to perform surgery with... if one could perform brain surgery with a wrench. "Okay," she muttered as she considered the parts with a certain amount of trepidation. This engine was unique, a design from scratch to compete at the top levels of motorcycle racing. The parts were either made from scratch or obtained from favors. There were enough of them for three engines and no way to get any spares beyond that; the bike would have to win races and attract sponsorship for that. Thus, she was more than a little concerned about making any error whatsoever in assembly. This contemplation took about a minute before Dee nodded to herself and started the mp3 player in her right arm's computer. As the first notes of the song were piped into her consciousness she opened up the checklist file. Though her memory was perfect and she knew every last detail of the engine, she was taking no risks; every single operation to assemble the engine was documented. Turning the engine upside-down on its stand, Dee took the first of the main journal studs from its place on the cart. She applied two drops of thread locker to the end of it and started screwing it into the block. The torque wrench she picked up transmitted readings directly to her arm computer which superimposed the image on her vision, but for redundancy's sake pressure sensors in her arm's hand also computed the torque. Going as exactly to specs as the readout would display and marking off each step as she went, Dee then repeated the process on the next one. Quite a few hours later and the engine was becoming more and more complete. Dee was maybe a third of the way through the checklist, but all the big bits were in the beginning. Right now she was taking what amounted to a break, sipping a liter bottle of Powerade. It was good timing actually; the 'incoming message' icon blinked on the lower edge of her vision, which had happened a few other times that morning. Damocles was handling the phone traffic, but some people had motorcycle questions he didn't know the answer to so he transferred them. Or maybe he was asking about dinner, she thought as she noticed the fact that the time had mysteriously advanced to the evening, also realizing she'd forgotten about lunch. She opened the comm function with a thought, not bothering to check the sender. "Athena Heavy Industries, this is Dee," she answered. The communications went straight from thoughts to the network, allowing her to do such things as answer the phone while drinking something. "Hello Dee, it's been a while," said a voice that she instantly recognized. It was a good thing that the link didn't pick up sound as it would have transmitted the sound of Dee choking for several seconds on a mouthful of blue flavored quasi-juice. "Malaclypse?" she asked in the midst of coughing, again fortunately not transmitted. The sender ID checked out too now that she looked, and it was from a JihadLinker source. "... uh... er... hi?" "We got your JihadLinker message," Mal said simply. "A lot of other people noticed that on the news, but you send a lot better quality pictures than they did. Were you and Damo okay?" Oh gosh, he actually asked if she was okay, and he went and called... "Uh, oh... yeah. Yeah, our booth was away from that and... I... ran away pretty fast." Stupid, why'd you put it like that? "Sensible thing to do, given. Well, to get to the point, we know who that was as he's someone fairly famous in the Jihad. That 'fuckstick', as you so colorfully put it, is Owsen." There was a pause for a moment, as Dee processed this information. "Lord Tilden Owsen. Who died on Pacifica." "Apparently he didn't." "Why the hell did he go and trash a gun show?!?" Dee sputtered. "We don't know. There's more though; he's also been killing Maenads. We don't know why about that either. The writing on the blade of the sword in the pictures you sent might provide a clue though." "I have higher res stereo versions if you want," she replied in shock. "That wouldn't hurt. We're getting a hold of some people but haven't managed too many so far." "I'm in. Damocles too probably." Jihad business being as close to family business as she had, of course she was involved. "Okay. We're probably going to have a meeting in Blanca within a week. I'll send a gate." With that he cut off the connection, leaving Dee to ponder this bizarre new turn of events. Eventually she opened up a connection to the shop's phone network. "Damo?" she said as he picked up the phone. "Something odd has come up..." BLANCA MOUNTAIN 3/14/2004 10:00 PM Katze had said goodbye and popped back to Berkeley an hour ago, and Aris had decided to bring KillJoy in on her pet project: trying to get the busted VTOL craft working again. In the meantime, they'd all eaten, KJ had cleaned himself off and buzzed away the rest of his charred hair, and found a spare set of Omega fatigues in his size. *Where* he'd managed to find them Aris didn't know. He'd also fixed the elevators. "I can't really fix this," KillJoy commented as he poked around inside the fuselage of the gunship. "Could you hand me a 10 millimeter socket?" "Why do you need a socket if you can't fix it?" she asked as she handed the enormous man the tool. He pulled out the ratchet wrench he was using and swapped sockets, then snaked his arm back inside the access panel and worked on unbolting something hidden from view of either of them. "Well, the main flight control computer's fried, and I can't fix that. But it can be replaced." "Ah, okay. Do we have spares?" "Yup. Actually, could you go get one? Black box about the size of a hardcover book, part number TZ53279 dash v... should be in storage room 203, right over there." He gestured with his left arm at some of the reinforced doors around the perimeter of the hanger. "You're making that up," Aris commented. "2 rows left from the door, then 5 racks away from the wall the door's in. Should be on the 3rd shelf from the top." Aris looked even more incredulous and KillJoy chuckled slightly. "5 bucks says it's right there." Aris just shook her head and walked off towards the storage room to retrieve the control box. Astonishingly enough, it was exactly where she'd been told to look. Then again, he'd been able to find everything else around the place without asking. And of course there was the incredibly improbable matter of his finding the one access tunnel that had shifted towards the surface in the first place. None of this was made any better by the fact that records showed he'd never been to Blanca before. "Thank you," he said as she handed him the replacement module. There was one looking exactly like it, though dirtier, on the floor. "I told you," he commented with a faint smile as he started bolting the new part in place. "How do you do that?" "Hmm?" "Well, you knew where the control module was exactly, and that it was what was burned out. You knew your way around here perfectly, you know who Katze and I are... you found the access tunnel in and there's no possible way you could have known that." "You're right, I didn't." Aris looked at him sideways, as if trying to figure out if he was being sarcastic. He shrugged. "I just do these things." No one said anything for a moment. "What, that's it?" "Yup." "Haven't you wondered how you can do that?" Aris asked, exasperated. "Nope." As if sensing that elaboration was needed, he added, "I just do things, like I said. I don't think. Brain doesn't work that way... some of the TRES techs that did the standard psych evaluations said I'm probably not even sentient. I get by though, which really made them mad." There was an awkward pause at that because, really, how do you reply to that? The relative quiet made Aris notice something, a faint whistling that had been showing up every few seconds. "What's that sound?" "When I breathe?" KillJoy asked in response. Aris nodded. "I had a couple machinegun rounds hit me coming in here. One went through a lung." "Holy shit! And you're working on this and haven't bothered to patch yourself up first?" "It's just a hole, it'll close up in a day or so." He took his arm out of the access panel and set down the socket wrench before reaching back in to attach some wires. "Argh... just... what the..." KillJoy nodded to himself and stood up. "I'll go patch myself up now. The VTOL just needs the access panel and insulation put back." He started to walk off. "Hey, the medbay's not that way." Aris commented as she started putting the panel back on. "I know." He went out of view and a few moments later there was a distinctive sound of tape being peeled off of a roll. "Are you just using duct tape on yourself?" "Yep." DOWNTOWN DENVER, COLORADO 03/14/2004 2:32 PM Joseph Lacroix wandered through downtown Denver, trying to collect his thoughts. Since the news a few days before, he had attempted a few times to try and find some other former Jihaddi to get in touch with. There wasn't much luck in that, of course. His Linker was, he confirmed, quite dead from a few years of non-use, and a few phone numbers for old war buddies he'd kept in touch with had since fallen out of use as people moved across the country trying to find civilian life again. After a few days of effortless trying, Lacroix grew frustrated. He knew he wanted in on whatever was going down (despite the obligation to Skyview; he was going to have to figure out what to do about that if he *did* make contact with anyone), but there wasn't much luck happening at the moment. Rumour had it that one of the senior VRDET emeriti was running a high-tech firm somewhere in town. Lacroix was pretty sure it was Spiral Corporation, which had gone up like a rocket in the past four years or so, but he wasn't sure enough and didn't quite feel up to taking the chance of being wrong and written off as a mental case. So here he was, taking his usual Sunday walk through the downtown core. Lacroix did that every week anyway. It was a habit he'd built up since returning to civilian life, ending up as something of a weekly affirmation that he *could* be blatantly out in the open without anyone giving him a second glance. Anyone who *did* notice him would see the consistent and appropriately Mundane history given to him by one Jihad intelligence plant or another. So even if he *was* looking around now and then to see if he recognized anyone, he was taking comfort in the fact that he was anonymous. The walk had become part of his routine, a comforting reminder that the war was over. Too bad it seemed like one might have just started up. Lacroix was lost in thought as he kept walking, so he almost didn't notice the odd-looking man on the other side of the street. When he did, however, he pulled to a stop for a second to double-check. The man walking the other way across the street would stick out in most cases anyway, as he was both taller than usual and dressed almost entirely in black. That happened now and then anyway; there were only so many combinations of clothes people could wear. His walk, however, was... different. The man didn't walk so much as glide along the sidewalk, with an unusual, curious motion that wove him through the crowds with more grace than most people could muster. Lacroix had seen that stride before, in his other life. Maybe this guy was someone who would have a better idea of what's going on, Lacroix thought, as he changed direction and tried to catch up with the guy. It took a few minutes; the other man kept a quick pace, considering the other pedestrians didn't slow him down at all. Eventually, though, Lacroix caught up with him, coming up alongside his right side. The glove on his right hand seemed to confirm suspicions. "Excuse me, sir?" he asked. The man slowed a bit to let him catch up, but didn't stop. He sized up Lacroix with a pair of dark blue eyes. "Can I help you?" he asked, with a hint of a European accent Lacroix couldn't place. "...Captain Houben?" Lacroix ventured cautiously. This time the man *did* slow to a halt. "A veteran, mm?" he asked - rather lamely, Lacroix thought, before realizing that they *were* still in something of a crowd. Lacroix nodded. "Yeah; Ensign Joseph Lacroix, Alpha," he volunteered. Houben nodded more this time, finally having a face and name to tie together. "I was wondering if you'd heard." "Oh, you could say that," Houben said, nodding up the sidewalk to get them moving again. "Those of us who're still on the network have been chatting up a storm about it the past couple of days, but there's a whole lot of silence from some people who should be talking. I came to Denver on a hunch that I'd find *someone* in the know. Things seem more than a little confused as is." "That's what I was guessing, although it's not like they can just call us all back again," Lacroix said. "How many people are in the know so far?" "Aside from everyone who was watching CNN last Tuesday?" Houben asked. "I couldn't tell you. There's about a half-dozen of us who're actually in contact with each other so far, though." This time it was Lacroix's turn to stop in his tracks. "Half a dozen? You've kidding." At its height during Operation Phoenix, the Jihad fielded sixty thousand men, women and equivalents; by its dissolution five years ago, it still boasted a third of that total. Only a few of them took their Linkers with them, and most of *those* were almost certainly dead by now, since Mundanes couldn't quite reproduce the power cells yet, but even so... "I wish I was," Houben replied. "We've got a few senior folks, mostly VR, a couple guys with TRES connections, but that's about it. No Maenads in sight - except for, well, you know." "So just what are we gonna -" "Not here," Houben interrupted, "it's a bit public for that. Know anyplace out of the way?" "My apartment's a couple blocks from here," Lacroix said. He gestured in the right direction, and they started walking. 2:50 PM "I was starting to wonder if anyone was out there at all. I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone I worked closely with in TRES or VR, not that many of us kept much in the line of contact information." "Mm," Houben mmd. "For the most part the upper echelons sorta stayed in touch - even that's been drifting off, though - and most of the rank and file just went off to look for a home. Between that and folks not taking good enough care of their Linkers to make sure they were still working -" Lacroix winced a bit, and hoped the Zeta Squad alumnus sitting across the room from him didn't notice - "we were probably lucky to get as many people as we have so far. Oh, I'm sure thousands of us have heard about Owsen by now, but not many of the veterans are going to be in a position to do anything." "Right," Lacroix agreed. "Who has answered any pings so far, anyway?" "We're sort of lucky with VR," Houben said. "We managed to get a hold of most of the command staff, and so everyone's starting to gather back at Blanca. Other than that, not much. Myself, of course, and two or three others from TRES and VR. That's pretty much it." "Maenads?" "Not a one," Houben replied. "Merde," Lacroix said under his breath. "I suppose at least it isn't Windigo or Shardik who's out running amok. But still. That's all we got?" "That's what it looks like. It's still early yet; we'll probably find some more Jihaddi who haven't completely fallen off the map. Anyone we can get a hold of who we can also pull out of Mundane life will be needed to deal with this." "I want in," Lacroix said. Houben nodded approvingly as he went on. "It'll take a bit of doing to figure out what to do about my life here, though," he finished, gesturing around the living room. "Problem?" Houben said. Lacroix couldn't tell if it was annoyance at having any caveats about coming back to the Jihad, or genuine concern. "Well..." Lacroix said, casting about a bit for words. "I've taken years after being demobilized to build the life I've got going now. See, I've become a teacher. High school English, three classes this semester. We've all got responsibilities in our Mundane lives, yeah, but there's eighty-eight minds over at Skyview, most of whom are doing pretty damn well right now. This gives me a bit of a problem. See, the Jihad was a fight to try as much for the planet as the minds on it. I'm still in that second part right now..." "...And you're worried about blowing it for seven dozen people in case this turns out to 'just' be Owsen going stark raving nuts, and not B'harneii coming back by proxy," Houben finished. Lacroix nodded. "I've got a feeling it's not the first of those two," Houben continued. "You and I both know that Owsen shouldn't be here to go nuts in the first place. You've heard the stories, and Admiral Felton and the other Maenads witnessed it - Charn'El *took Owsen down* on Pacifica. The man's supposed to be dead, and yet here he is, somewhere in Nevada, raising hell. "What's worse was the fact that the last time Owsen was seen, Charn'El was in the room, putting a spell on him or striking him with his staff or something. If he's back now, it has 'Lyran' written all over it." Houben sighed. "And *that* means the war is probably back on." "Don't get me wrong," Lacroix said. "I'd had most of that in mind already. I'm just trying to figure out what to do about getting in contact with what's left of the Jihad without leaving my students hanging. I have responsibilities on both sides of this line, and my Mundane ones aren't worth dismissing totally out of hand." Lacroix was a bit surprised with himself at the fact that he was actually wavering on the issue. The kids in his classes had become *important* to his life, and in a way more meaningful than simply a paycheck like so many of the other teachers out there. _Whichever side of the line I'm on, I always seem to have a stake in the future,_ he mused to himself. "If they'll be okay, then you've got someone here." Houben thought for a moment. "You have a point there. I'll pass word; we should be able to do something, but either way the kids should be taken care of. If the guys can pull something off, are you in?" Lacroix pondered just a moment. "I'm in." BLANCA MOUNTAIN 03/15/2004 2:00 PM Aris was spending a lot of time eyeing Lt. KillJoy sideways. It wasn't that he minded staring, it was that she felt self-conscious about how much of it she was doing. He was big, for a human; that was one thing. And he was built. And his eyes were creepy as hell, which made her glad that he kept his goggles on almost all the time. But he was a wizard with machinery; he got the VTOL online in an afternoon. And then the autorepair. And then figured out how to boot up the nanofacs. Then he'd gone to attend his sucking chest wound and left Aris scratching her head. Now, a couple days later, Aris was watching the clock tick down on the calibration for the Gate and watching Lt. KillJoy out of the corner of her eye. He was standing, relaxed, in the middle of the stage, dressed in slightly rumpled TRES fatigues with all the required tagging sewed onto the shoulders. Aris had pulled a pair of dress khakis and a vest over her leotard, figuring that she wasn't going to spend much time in dragonform for a while. Bother. And it had felt good to have claws for such a long time. "Here we go," Katze said from her other side. Katze had teleported in at one o'clock, fresh from Berkeley. Aris looked down at the readout, the numbers rapidly spiraling down from ten seconds. Katze was grinning. "Cross your fingers." The seconds ticked down. Three... two... one... Bink! Aris held her breath until the green light came on. "Calibration successful. Gate fully operational." "HELL yes!" Aris crowed. "We got ourselves a GATE, boys and girls!" She flipped open her 'linker and sent a signal to Minerva. "Good news, Min: Blanca is back online!" "Great!" Minerva said. "I'm going to connect with the relays over there. Mal will meet you in a couple minutes, soon as I double-check everything." "Okay." Aris suddenly noticed her body complaining that it hadn't had anything to eat yet. And it was two in the afternoon. "Uh... actually, have Mal meet us up in the situation room? I need to grab something to eat, and that way we'll have all the data in front of us." "Sure, I'll tell him." Aris looked at Katze inquiringly. "Lunch? I'm paying." Katze snickered and gestured at the elevators grandly. Aris turned to look at KillJoy straight on. "Er... join us, Lieutenant?" "Sure." KillJoy shrugged, resembling a mountain rearranging itself. Aris nodded and wondered if they'd all manage to fit in the elevator. 2:15 PM Mal stepped through the Gate and back into Blanca for the first time in nearly five years. The first thing he noticed was the dust. Everything in the Gate room had a thin layer of greyish dust covering it. Apparently the automated maintenance systems either had failed since the closeout, or somebody - read: Mal - had forgotten to turn them on in the first place. Still, despite the shabby housekeeping, it felt good to be back home. Mal stepped off the portal entry stage to keep it clear for the next arrival, and surveyed the room. The dust was the only thing that seemed out of sorts with the room. Even if the housekeeping systems hadn't worked, there weren't any signs of water damage or structural problems. All the equipment had worked perfectly, and nothing seemed out of order, even after five years of inactivity. The only thing missing was the background hum of the Rangers going about their daily duties. Mal sighed. Some things changed and didn't change back. But there was no use in moping endlessly about the past, so Mal strode off towards the elevators in the rear of the Gate room, bound for the upper levels and the situation room. Katze had already shown up and was chatting amiably with Aris, who was nursing a Coke and a sandwich. Off to one side stood the biggest white guy Mal had ever seen, just sort of leaning against a console and doing his part to keep the wall upright. The two women looked up as Mal came through the door and waved him over to the long table in the center of the room. "Afternoon, ladies," said Mal as he walked around to the end of the table. "It's been a while." Aris gestured towards the wall-propper. "Mal, meet Lieutenant KillJoy, TRES Corps. He's been a big help in getting stuff running again." KillJoy nodded his head ever so slightly. "Sir," he said. Mal nodded back. "I hear you caused a bit of trouble in the old access tunnel." "Wasn't much, really." "Uh-huh. And how did you know to open it up right there, anyway?" "I didn't." Mal blinked. "You... didn't," he said, nonplussed. "Nope. Just did it." Aris shook her head. "Forget it, he's always like that." Mal gave both Aris and KillJoy odd looks, then shrugged and sat down. "Okay, so what's our status?" "The base is in good shape. The surface tunnel's pretty much shot to hell, but other than that all the major stuff is operational and powered up. The nanofacs are running on idle, so if we need gear that's all good." "Good, good... we'll have to seal off the tunnel a bit more permanently, but that shouldn't be too difficult. How about our externals?" Aris sighed. "That is a totally different story. Most of our orbital stuff is long gone; there's maybe two communications relays still working, everything else burned up years ago." "What about the ground sensor network?" "Don't know, haven't tried it yet. I've been a little -busy-, remember?" Aris added pointedly. "Hm. Let's see what's working at the moment." Mal typed a series of commands into the console in front of him. The view on the main screen changed as he did so, shifting from a global view to a close-up of the desert on the California-Nevada border. "Back when the Road was open, we had a whole bunch of sensors placed around it. It was an early-warning system; if somebody had tried to make a move through we could know about it and counterattack before they oriented themselves. Now, if the sensor net is still... aha!" Flashing red brackets appeared on the screen, just west of Las Vegas. "The detectors are pretty degraded, so that's as good as it gets, but," Mal said with some satisfaction, "that is our boy's entry point." "Great," said Katze dryly, "so how does that help us?" "The entry point isn't on the Babylon Road," replied Minerva. "Which means that the direct line between us and the Lyrans is still closed. Considering we're short on anti-Lyran defenses at the moment..." "Okay, I suppose that qualifies as a good thing, then." Mal shrugged. "Any good news is still good news, no matter how small," he said. "So, how are we doing for personnel?" Aris shrugged. "Well... once we had the network up I started pinging as many Linkers as I could. So far I've gotten about two thousand positives. Of those, half are coming from inside the old bases - I figure people just dumped them in their quarters and forgot they were still running or something. Anyway, out of all the folks who still have their Linkers, so far the only ones who've responded to the ping are, well, us." "We're not quite that bad off," said Minerva. "Shadur's out there, remember. And we managed to get a hold of Dee Greist and Damocles. And Shad said he'd run into another Ranger, so that's four more. And I'm sure we can scare up a few more people before too long." Mal nodded. "Okay, so we're dangerously short on personnel, but we've picked up some of the better ones. And at this point, we don't have to crack out the droid soldiers or anything," he added with a faint grin. "It's just Owsen we have to deal with, not a full-fledged invasion force." Aris snorted. "'Just' Owsen, he says. Yeah, right." They deliberated long into the afternoon, setting up a vague schedule for getting the rest of their wayward band together and up to operational speed. Katze told the group she had prior engagements waiting for her "back in the Old Country" on the 21st. Some of the others were stuck in mundane holding patterns until the weekend - the situation, while critical, wasn't bad enough to justify abandoning their lives just yet - so by general consensus, the five Jihaddi agreed to hold the first all-hands meeting at Blanca on the upcoming Saturday. In the meantime, Aris would stay inside the base and keep trying to get hold of any active Linkers that showed on the network. KillJoy volunteered - or at least he shrugged and grunted noncommittally - to stay with Aris and help get the rest of the base operational again. Mal and Minerva had their corporation to run, but promised to keep in regular touch until the meeting could be arranged. When they finally broke for dinner, the group had come up with the first faint glimmerings of a plan of attack. What happened next would be dealt with at the meeting on Saturday. TAYLOR, MICHIGAN 03/15/2004 8:00 PM The man who the Jihad knew as Ozzy the Feral strolled down through the hall of his office building with a song in his heart. After retiring from the Jihad six years before, Ozzy had been at something of a loose end for a while; retiring from the ultimate battle of good versus evil to a mundane life took some getting used to, but he'd adapted. Putting his experiences to good use, Ozzy had signed on as a freelance writer of role-playing games. His star took him to the top of that (admittedly niche) market, and now Oswald Feralson (The alias he'd decided was appropriate after much deliberation.) was the top writer for Palladium Books, churning out book after book to the acclaim of powergamers the world over. Life was good for Ozzy the Feral, yes indeed. As he stepped out of the side door to the building on his way to the parking lot, Ozzy heard a familiar voice call out "Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye!" Ozzy turned, and his brain had just enough time to register Tilden Owsen's grin, a flickering shadow, and the feel of something touching his neck before his consciousness switched off forever. DENVER, COLORADO 03/16/2004 12:00 AM *click* "Yeah?" "We've got another one, Boss. Guy in Michigan got his head chopped off coming out of work. The police IDed the guy, and it looks like it was Ozzy." "... Allright. I'll grab somebody in the morning and go check it out. Thanks for letting me know, Min." "No problem, Boss. Pleasant dreams." "Tell me about a decapitation and then tell me 'pleasant dreams.' Cute. Goodnight, Min." "Night, Boss." *click* TAYLOR, MICHIGAN 03/16/2004 7:00 AM "I really, really hate this," grumbled Aris as she adjusted her clothes. "This cheap government-issue polyester itches." "Oh relax," said Mal as he straightened his tie and adjusted his Ray-Bans. "We're going to do this nice and quick, check the scene out and see if Owsen left any clues behind." "I still really, really hate this." "Hush." As they approached the crime scene, they were stopped by a uniformed cop guarding the area. "I'm sorry folks, police only," he said, holding out a hand. Mal took off his sunglasses, locked eyes with the cop and held up a blank square of paper. "Special Agent Charles, FBI, this is Agent Taylor. Our {number/date/official/see numbers} ID. We're {trustworthy/a little strange/to be expected} here to investigate the crime scene as we think there might be a connection to terrorism involved. {recent memory/old Tom Clancy novels/happy to be a little scared} It's probably nothing, but you know how the bosses can be {affable/understanding} sometimes. We'll just be a few minutes {appropriate} and be on our way {confidential/tell nobody}." The cop blinked a couple of times, then smiled. "Of course, happy to help out the feds," he said, stepping aside. "Most everything's already been carted away, but it hasn't been cleaned yet. You just yell if you need anything." Mal assured the officer that they would call for assistance if need be, and then the two "FBI agents" entered the taped-off crime scene. "What the hell was that you used on the cop?" Aris asked. Mal smiled slightly. "Old Injun trick." The scene of Ozzy the Feral's demise was like much any other crime scene anywhere else in the country. The area was blocked off with the traditional yellow tape, and the spots where the bisected Maenad had fallen were also taped off. Like the cop had said, the evidence - consisting mainly of Ozzy's corpse - had already been removed, but there were still plenty of bloodstains scattered about the area. Mal dropped down and examined the bloodstain on the pavement. He pulled a small sampling device out of his jacket pocket and used it to scrape up a bit of dried blood. "Here we go, this should take care of the ID," he said. Aris, meanwhile, examined the cut in the wall where Owsen's sword had glanced off. "Guy's got a hell of a backhand," she noted. "Mm," agreed Mal. The sampler pinged softly. Mal picked it up and hooked it to his JihadLinker. "Let's see, got enough DNA for a match, and... yep, it's Ozzy all right. Or was, anyway." "So, what now? Do we go and check out the body?" "No, that might cause more problems than it's worth, especially if the -real- Feds take an interest. Let's case this for another minute or two, then we'll head back and get some actual breakfast, deal?" "Deal." That settled, the two checked out the general area of the crime scene. Mal surveyed the cut Aris had been looking at earlier, when he noticed something stuck inside the furrow. It was a tiny matte-black sliver of metal that had gone unnoticed in the initial investigation. Mal got out a pair of tweezers, carefully pulled out the sliver, and deposited it in a sample tube. He whistled and waved Aris over. "Got something?" Aris asked. "Yeah, I think I got a chunk of Owsen's sword. Let's get this back to the lab and us to a Denny's or something." "Denny's" turned out to be Chicago deep-dish pizza picked up in person between a stop in the Blanca R&D lab and crashing in the situation room. Minerva joined them as they waited, stealing a slice of pizza every few minutes and looking into the middle distance while she chewed and monitored the analysis simultaneously. Aris attempted to ask Mal about what Spiral was doing, but got lost halfway through the first answer and asked about recent politics instead. "Wait a minute. So you're saying they found out who was behind the attacks, got a good idea of where they were based, then gave up after trashing the place and invaded Iraq? Why?" "Many reasons," Mal said dryly, which was his standard setting, "most of them having nothing to do with terrorism or the attacks on the World Trade Center. The biggest reason was because they *could*." "Auuuuugh," Aris gurgled, head in hands. After a few seconds, she looked up again. "Anything good happen? Did the Giants win the World Series?" "They lost in Game Seven to the Anaheim Angels," Minerva said without looking. "Never mind." "I'm getting some results," Minerva said. The status board flickered, changed to show an enhanced image of the sliver, overlaid in several different colors. "It definitely isn't Owsenite any more." "But it was?" Aris asked. "As far as I can tell, it used to be. But these stress responses are all wrong. And here," a section of the view was enlarged, to show a piece of the sliver riddled with holes like a particularly choice mafia informer, "See these? They've got residue from a lot of magic being poured through them. So much, in fact, that there's no particular signature, just noise. But this extends enough that it looks like the entire blade must have been bathed in it." Mal looked completely unperturbed at this perturbation. He turned to Aris and raised an eyebrow. "Theories?" Aris shrugged. "Some enterprising Lyran picked it up and tried to destroy it, causing it to... do whatever it did?" "Possible." Mal looked back at the screen and frowned. "That is possible. It could be a remnant of a growth medium, also." "Bwah?" "Well, the Slayer we have - had - wasn't growing very fast at all; a small fraction of an inch every month at most. If Owsen's Slayer was regenerating at the same rate, an enterprising Lyran would have had to try and force-grow it back into an actual weapon." "Huh." Aris shrugged again. "I guess we'll have to ask Owsen when we catch up to him." CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 03/18/2004 1:00 AM J. FoxGlov grunted as he slammed up against the brick wall. Battered and bleeding, the former Jihaddi had been surprised when he was jumped by a kilted madman, and even more surprised that, despite all of J's parahuman abilities, the kilted madman was -winning-. Attempting to get on the offensive, J pulled his strength together and let fly a barrage of lightning from his fingers. His opponent parried the lightning easily, almost languidly, his sword absorbing what he didn't dodge outright. The flashes lit up the kilted figure's face, and J was stunned to see Tilden Owsen's features, twisted in mockery, on his attacker's face. "Owsen!?" J said. "The HELL!? Where, how, why..?" "Why?" Owsen said. "They always ask that question... Does it really -matter- why? Because I was -bored-. Because you left me to ROT on that stinking island so many years ago. Because a great dark voice on the edge of nothing spoke to me and said you all have to die." Owsen lunged forward like a cobra, driving the point of his blade through J's throat. "THERE IS NO WHY!" SPIRAL BUILDING 03/19/2004 9:00 AM "Sir, I'm sorry," the receptionist repeated for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, "but you can't see Dr. Fnord. He's cancelled all appointments and requested that visitors be turned away. Now," she added flatly, "if you don't leave, I'll have to call security." Jim Yearnshaw looked over the receptionist and quietly collected the admiral's rank pin he'd set on her desk as his "invitation." He concentrated, tapping his cane on the hard stone floor of the lobby for effect as he worked his magic on the wires and chips inside the phone. The hard SMACK of the cane hitting granite blended nicely with the loud BANG coming from the receptionist's phone. Distracted by the noise and the smoke, the receptionist turned away from Yearnshaw, who smoothly slipped around the reception desk and towards the bank of elevators at the back of the lobby. A moment later, the receptionist realized her visitor had given her the slip, and she called out behind him. A moment after -that-, the on-duty security attachment, attracted by the smoke and noise, moved to intercept. Just as the first security officer managed to touch Yearnshaw's elbow, and that worthy was preparing to send Spiral's insurance premiums skyrocketing, the last elevator door opened to reveal Jonathan Fnord, stepping out calmly as if altercations happened in the company lobby every other day. "Sir!" the receptionist called, sprinting up behind Yearnshaw and his security escort. "I'm very sorry sir, my phone... I don't know what happened, but I'll have Security escort him out." Fnord shook his head. "That's okay, Janet," he said reassuringly, waving the guards back, "no need to do that. This won't take long." Fnord gestured towards the still open elevator. "Shall we?" Yearnshaw was silent through the ride up to Fnord's office. Reaching the office, he dropped into a chair and stretched out. "So, what's up, Doc?" Mal smiled thinly. "Jim," he said. "It's been a while. I haven't seen you since the stand-down conference." Mal's eyes flicked for an instant to Yearnshaw's cane, the question obvious in his eyes. Yearnshaw's face remained carefully neutral. "Well," he replied, ignoring the questioning look, "some mutual friends of ours wanted me to get hold of you. Seems," and here he chuckled slightly, "you haven't been checking your voicemail." Mal blinked, surprised more at the nature of the messenger than the message. "I had wondered who they'd send after me," he mused. "Why -you-, though? You never had any special loyalty to the Five or the Project. As I recall, you wished a plague on all our houses and vanished into thin air. Quite vocally and with the appropriate special effects, to boot." "I hope you liked the toads," Yearnshaw said with a sardonic grin. "Designed 'em just for you." Mal gave his guest the same thin smile. "They were a nice touch." Yearnshaw shrugged. "Why they picked me? You'd probably know that better than me. We did manage to reach an agreement, though. Goods for services, that kind of thing. Now," he said, leaning forward, "You have something I can tell them?" The former Jihaddi turned Illuminatus turned Jihaddi again looked at his erstwhile comrade for a minute, weighing all the options before mentally shrugging and saying "Our old friend Owsen's back... somehow, and he's been causing some trouble." Yearnshaw nodded. "Yeah, I watch the news too. That's it?" "No, that's not it. He's carrying around a Lyran artifact - or a very good knockoff of one - and he's already killed two Maenads with it, as far as we know." Mal sighed. "I've been looking into it. If this was just Owsen behaving loopy, I'd have passed it on up to the Five and to hell with him; this project-" Mal gestured at the office "-is more important to the Project than one supernatural nutbar. But... I have a feeling that the War may have just restarted." Yearnshaw raised an eyebrow. "Offing Maenads, huh? Well, let's just get up as quick as we can and stop him, then." "This could run deeper than that. Either way, that should be enough to let your make your report and get the Five off your back." "Yeah. I'll keep in touch." And with that, Yearnshaw stood and made his way out of the office. Mal watched him go, then leaned back in his chair with an explosive sigh. Why do these things keep getting more and more goddamn complicated? BLANCA MOUNTAIN 03/20/2004 3:28 PM /This is almost everyone,/ Minerva told Malaclypse as Damocles and Deidre Greist walked into the conference room. /Houben and Lacroix are coming through the gate now./ /And then there were nine,/ Mal replied, more to himself than anything. /Wonderful! We'll have ourselves a little fellowship! Send them up here as soon as they're through, of course./ /Right, Boss,/ Mal made sure not to let his emotions show as he surveyed the group. The Jihaddi present came from most walks of the organization. Some members of the senior staff were present; Katze and Damocles were VRDET Directors, Merquoni a commander and former member of the Triumverate Council (with another member en route to the room at that moment), and of course Mal himself. Some of the Jihad's newer blood was present as well, with KillJoy, Delgado and Greist present, and another VRDET junior officer coming up with Shad. A nicely varied mix of ranks and talents, to be sure. Too bad there weren't a few orders of magnitude more of them. At that moment, the door to the conference room opened, and the last two members of the meeting walked in. Houben simply nodded at those he knew and beelined for a seat as Lacroix double-took, realizing how many members of the Brass were present and snapping to attention. "You might want to use less starch," Mal said dryly as Katze chuckled and waved him to a seat, "the uniforms are all in storage. Besides, we're a bit few for hierarchy right now." Lacroix nodded, endeavoured to look a little less pollaxed, and took a seat next to Captain Delgado. "Now that we're all here," Mal said with a hint of a rolled eye, "we might as well get started. Min?" Minerva set into a summary of what had been up for the past week and a half, giving a report that involved a lot of speaking without saying much. Suffice to say, everyone was pretty sure Owsen was alive and acting even odder than he traditionally did. Most of Minerva's information was piecing together confused news reports and theorizing. At last she came to the pictures Dee had taken, displaying them on the conference room's main viewer. "I'm kind of curious about the sword," Lacroix said after a moment. "It looks almost like a copy of the Slayer, but I know that thing isn't it. Any ideas?" "There's, um, a few," Katze said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. Lacroix looked at her questioningly and found her looking another question at Mal. After a moment, he nodded and straightened in his seat. "Our best guess," he began, "is that Owsen's weapon *is* the Slayer - or at least is derived from it. This probably goes back to the Pacifica operation, where the Maenads battled Charn'El. When Charn'El struck Owsen down, he also snapped the Slayer in two." Mal ploughed through the choking sounds from Damocles, Dee and Lacroix. "We recovered two feet of the blade, which are in Pupp's care at, uh, wherever he is right now. The section we recovered has been slowly regenerating since it was broken, and we've assumed the other section is doing the same. "Unfortunately, the hilt and the bottom foot of the blade vanished with Charn'El. Even crippled, we can't even guess at his power; he could probably have rebuilt the Slayer in a matter of months if he escaped. And, well," Mal sighed, "we were never sure if Owsen *died* at Pacifica. Now we are. "Owsen might have gotten the Slayer on his own, wherever he was sent to when Charn'El was exiled, but he also might not have. All we know for sure is that he's here and has a weapon that looks to be made from what the Slayer's hilt. I've got some guesses as to what's going on, but they're only guesses." After a few moments of silence, Damocles straightened in his seat. "Just who was in the know on this? I know *I* wasn't. When did you plan on telling -" "The Triumverate and the Maenads knew," Mal interrupted, "as did a few of the command staff present at Pacifica, and select members of the Admiralty." "So what you're telling me is that the War came to an end with the ultimate weapon broken, with the other half *not* lodged in B'harne's chest? What the fuck?" "What would you have us do?" Mal shot back. "Drop a secret that would send the entire goddamned Jihad's morale into the pit by telling them the one sure way to win the War was gone?" "I'd at least let the senior JAO staff know!" Damo responded. "Obviously we have to keep some things from the rank and file, but -" "And just as obviously, some things have to be kept from even the brass," Mal replied. "Security was a *sieve* back then. We'd lost forty percent of our manpower, another ten or twenty was messed up in one way or another, and we couldn't predict where a Jihaddi would be in six weeks, much less a few years down the road." "He's right," Captain Delgado spoke up quietly. "Things were too chaotic to be sure who we could trust that kind of information with. Keeping it to the Maenads, who have most of the Lyran-related experience, and the Triumverate makes sense. I only found out last week myself." Damocles glanced at Delgado and then glared at Mal a moment, obviously wanting to continue the argument, before letting out a sigh, nodding, and settling back in his seat. "What are our resources, sir?" Lacroix asked, desperately trying to wrench the subject back onto something practical. A few of those present shot him a grateful look. "Welllll..." Mal said, before waving vaguely about the room. "There's us, for starters. As well, the resources of VRDET HQ are at our disposal; the nanofacs should be up and running by now. We've got a couple of other contacts as well - a Dobe intel guy is on his way in, and we're trying to get a hold of Felton." "There's no one else?" Katze asked. "It doesn't' seem that way," Minerva interjected. "Obviously we weren't the only people who put two and two together - anyone who made it into the Jihad isn't going to be that blind about the rest of the world. So yes, there are others, but for one reason or another we can't get in touch with them. I would guess there are somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand Jihaddi out there, trying to figure out what's going on with their own devices, but who can't get in touch with anyone else. In short, we've got to assume that we're it." "So," Captain Houben said, "let me see if I can get this right. Right now, we've gotten a hold of maybe one Jihaddi in a thousand, our resources are all but gone, and one of the most powerful Jihaddi to exist has gone rogue. I suppose it's not all that bad, then - I was worried things were starting to spiral out of control." "The situation is already out of control," Malaclypse said, his "cut the joking" tone restrained yet obvious. He paused a moment to let the sentence sink in. "Owsen is out there somewhere," he continued. "He's killing every Maenad he can find, and we don't know why. Let that sink in, boys and girls - he's *hunting* *Maenads* like game, and taken out at least two that we know of so far. He's either gone rogue, or someone else -" he let the implication hang in the air without pausing, somehow - "has been giving him both power and resources. B'harne and the Lyrans have been gone for five years, but this has either or both of those groups written all over it." Mal almost sighed. "I hate stabs in the dark and wild guesses, but I've got to assume that Owsen is working for the Enemy, either directly or indirectly. Whatever's going on, he's a threat to all of us right now." "Well," Dee said. "That's all. For a moment I thought we were in trouble." Mal looked at Dee, seeming unsure whether to smile or glare at her and settling on an ostentatiously expressionless expression. Dee smirked nervously. "So," Houben added, trying to match Dee's tone of voice, "what do you expect us to do about it?" "It's simple, really," Malaclypse replied. "We'll just have to do what we do best. We'll track him down, figure out what he or his patrons want, and then..." he trailed off. "And then...?" Katze prompted. The answer was obvious to everyone. But it was *still* *Lord Tilden Owsen* they were talking about. It was *still* a man who was a living legend to all but a few of the Jihaddi since the Hidden War started. Every time in the past where Jihaddi turned on Jihaddi, both sides were perverted by B'harnate or Lyran influence. This time, Owsen seemed a tool - but the men and women crowded into Mal's office had total control of their own perceptions right now. Mal nodded to Katze, confirming what they all knew to be the answer. "And then," he said softly. KALLISPEL, MONTANA RIGHT THAT SECOND... Owsen looked up from his chess game with Ferg the Feral and blinked. "My ears are burning," he announced. "Somebody must be talking about me somewhere. Something wicked this way comes, perhaps?" he added with a sly grin. Ferg didn't answer. Owsen shrugged. "Ah well, I suppose I should be happy that people remember me. Being away like I was for so long, well... it's nice to know I still make an impression in people's lives." Again, Ferg remained silent. Owsen leaned forward over the chessboard. "You know," he said with sudden intensity, "I've really enjoyed our time together, I really have. We never did talk much back in the old days; I was too busy and you, well, frankly I thought you were a bit of a prat. But absence does indeed appear to make the heart grow fonder. All of the others didn't want to converse, but -you-! Oh, you have been so helpful in getting this confused old man up to date with the rest of the world. For that," Owsen continued, rising to his feet and sketching an elaborate bow, "I thank you." Ferg continued his impassive silence. Owsen cocked his head suddenly, as if hearing a distant sound. "Hm," he mused. "It appears I have overstayed my welcome in this town. I do so apologize for having to run, but duty calls!" He leaned over the chessboard and moved his queen off to the side slightly. "Checkmate." Ferg didn't say anything as Owsen gathered up his guns and sword and ducked out a side door. It would have been difficult for him to say something, after all, with his head sitting upright in his lap, eyes still looking quizzically towards the edge of his dining room table. BLANCA MOUNTAIN 4:06 PM The meeting continued well into the afternoon, as a mix of tentative briefings and less-tentative speculation became the order of the day. The analysis of Owsen's sword seemed to settle it for most people that something Lyran was involved, but what specifically was more up for grabs, as was what to do about it. "Even if Owsen's the only enemy we've got on the planet right now," Lacroix said, still sounding slightly hesitant to call his former commander a foe, "He's still an enemy here on behalf of the *Lyrans* of all people. I know this is everyone we could get together in a couple of weeks so far, but why do we have to stop now? Shouldn't we go all-out trying to track people down and try to reform the *whole* organization?" There was murmured agreement, but Mal shook his head. "If we could do so easily, I'd be for it. However, a lot of us, especially the senior staff, simply don't want to be noticed by the general public." "Right, Mister CEO," Minerva chirped. "Hush, you," Mal responded. "The fact is, a lot of the officer corps is probably hidden well enough that we'd have an easier time finding Owsen. To make our time worth it, we'd have to get a good fraction of the whole organization, and I can't think of a way we can *quickly* do that which doesn't involve making the Jihad public. We don't want that. Unless anyone else can think of a way to get more of us in here...?" The question was asked with genuine concern. Those present in the room glanced at one another and slowly shook their heads. "There's another factor," Mal continued. "Owsen may not know - and if he doesn't, the Lyrans certainly don't - that the Jihad has been disbanded. This could be a scouting mission as much as an actual invasion. If their scout - powerful as he is - is sent to Earth only to go silent after a few weeks, they just might assume that we're still a going concern and stay away longer. "What this *does* show us is that the Lyrans want to come back, and that we can't dismiss them like we did back in 1999. However, unless they actually do arrive in force again, we have to push them onto a backburner for awhile. Owsen is here, *now*, killing off some of the best among us. We have to deal with *him* first, and then worry about what to do next." "So we've got to try to track down Owsen," Houben said, speaking into the silence. "How do we go about doing that? The man's hit Maenads in Texas and Michigan in a single 24-hour period. If he can hit two guys in opposite sides of the country in two days -" "That we know of," Minerva interrupted. Houben Looked, rather than merely looked, at her as she continued. "The United States is not the smallest and most-organized country out there, and a lot of things can slip through the cracks. We know these two for sure, but..." "Owsen hasn't been subtle so far," Aris noted. "These aren't drive-by shootings or whatever. Both Slider and Ozzy were obviously done in with a sword, and that sort of thing catches more notice than other types of murder here for some reason. Between stuff like a slice being taken out of the wall where Ozzy died, and the scorch marks on Slider's body, even the feds wouldn't think these were everyday things." "You're right, I think," Mal replied, "which is why we're going to be focusing on that so far. We can't predict where he'll be yet. All we can do is wait for the next hit and see what we can learn from it. Aris and I have already taken a look at Ozzy's scene in Taylor; Slider's was cleaned up by the time we got there. We'll have to get ready for the next ones and see what we can do from there, which means some of us will have to spend some time impersonating the Feds. See if we can get a look close up at some of the scenes, catch things they wouldn't know to look for." "Who's going to be doing that?" Lacroix asked. "Why, Joseph! Thank you for volunteering!" Mal said brightly. Houben feigned stifling a yawn to hide his half-grin, something Aris didn't even bother to do. "You can help Mr. Houben and Ms. Merquoni see what they can see!" Lacroix snorted as his two co-conscripts groaned. With that assignment, the last major item of the meeting was out of the way. As meetings are wont to do, however, this one kept going a little longer, with assorted administrivia and some generic catching-up. When the Jihaddi realized they had little else to cover with what they had at their disposal, they decided to call it quits for the day. With a reminder to keep their Linkers handy ("And *charged*," Houben grumbled at all present), the fellowship dispersed. 6:19 PM "All right," Aris said, plopping down behind her computer at her desk. Lacroix perched on a chair some distance away, and Shad leaned over her shoulder to watch her type. "Obviously, it would be a lot nicer if we could find people before Owsen does, and failing that if we could find them before the local law enforcement does. Our best resources are the Gate, of course, and a four-year-old listing of where all the Maenads were going at the time of The Big Shutd