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Fandom Mysterious Mysteries.

Orson felt nervous as he stared down the unconscious woman. Not so much because he thought he might still be followed, since he had gone out of his way to shoot the shit out of all of her belongings, but because he’d never been this close to getting the information he needed. It didn’t help that she was practically naked either, especially given that both the “chair” and “chains” used to restrain her were attached to his own body.

He could feel her against him, which, although uncomfortable, was the only way he could think to maintain control should she try any of her tricks. Tricks that Hurricane had mentioned consistently during those few times he talked about his captivity.

I wish she’d wake up. He thought. The sooner I get what I need, the sooner I can let her go.

He had first considered getting her something different to wear, but he figured he couldn’t risk sneaking into public again. Not after the fiasco with the phone girl, and he certainly didn’t want her to feel any more humiliated than she already might, so a trash “tunic” was out of the question.

No, he would just sit there, feeling her soft, warm skin, and endure the discomfort.

He had first thought not to destroy her suit and glasses, but Hurricane said they had a method of making harmless looking objects much worse than they appeared.

He also said they had used his body in an effort to experiment with their own technology, so if the suit Orson wore could imitate clothing, it was safer this way. Besides, he’d left her undergarments alone, so it really wasn’t all that bad.

Then again, if her undergarments were secretly dangerous as well, he may as well left the suit alone while he was at it. Orson had to admit here that even his caution had its limits. He’d rather risk fighting his way through a clever internet trap than to cross that boundary.

She then began to wake.

Currently disguise less, wearing only pants, he stared at her, trying to decide what to ask first. Maybe he should allow her to ask questions? Make her feel safer or less threatened. Maybe she’d cooperate better this way.

Then again maybe he shouldn’t be so nice. After all, they weren’t nice to Hurricane.

No, he had bigger problems. Besides, he never mentioned her, maybe she wasn’t directly involved in that side of things.

He tightened his grip ever so slightly, drawing the access suit back along the tendril-like appendage reaching from his stump of a right shoulder to her captivity wrap, just tight enough to where now that she was awake, she would notice where she was, and also that she would be less able to wiggle free if tempted.

Special Agent Denise Jones coughed a few times before speaking.

“Well, that is going to hurt your chances later, dude. I really was going to help you.”

She was likely referring to his choice to suffocate her into unconsciousness by using his suit to invade her mouth and nose, as a means to keep her from leaking information to his pursuers. Apparently her voice was still suffering from it as she spoke with a rasp, and couldn’t do so without coughing first.

“Still can. Don’t like to take risks though. I know what you do to Hurricane and I can’t say I want the same thing to happen to me.”

He eyed her up suspiciously as he spoke.

“Then you shouldn’t fight us. We’re the scrappiest S.O.B.s in the galaxy. But I suppose I’m not in a position to make threats. What do you want from me?”

Orson thought for a moment before responding. He’d been careful up until now, but was there really any use in secrecy? He was safe, and even if she told the internet facility what was going on, that wouldn’t aid them in capturing him would it?

“I need to know where it is so I can kill them. Hurricane’s ship.”

He sat up a little straighter, as if to assert his control over the situation.

“Is my phone or glasses still around? I’d need one or the other to tell you. Oor you could let me take you to base and we can get you all kinds of info.”

Orson shook his head.

“Destroyed them. Don’t want to be taken to your base, you’d torture me like you do Hurricane. I might be willing to work with your people if certain things can be guaranteed, but that would be it, otherwise I just want help getting what I want without getting interference from your ‘scrappy friends’.”

Orson wasn’t really concerned with a fight. The worst thing Hurricane had mentioned was some kind of energy displacing device, and according to him that hadn’t really done much to the suit. He was more concerned with being snuck up on and disabled before he could fight. The weapons they seemed to be using, at least so far didn’t seem to have an effect on him, but if the suit wasn’t encompassing him then he was vulnerable.

“Hmm, that complicates things. And it isn’t us that has “the hurricane”, I can just find out who does and where. By the way, you will want to keep me awake and happy for the next few minutes. I call in strong backup when you grabbed me and I can’t call them off without the phone. But we will get to that later… I guess. So, what would we need to do to get your cooperation?”

Keep her happy? What did she mean? He couldn’t help but glance at her nearly nude figure before shaking his head to stay focused on the task. Besides, surely that’s not what she meant.

“I need you to believe what I have to say, and work with me, my way, to take care of the problem. Right now I’m content to start with just you but if you can’t get your people to comply with that it’s going to end badly for you all. Understand that isn’t a threat, it’s a warning.”

He was a little surprised at her reaction.

“Ha ha ha haaah! People to believe you? Buddy, you have found the right person. Tell me, I can’t promise we can work with you, but I can promise you will have an advocate in me,” she said leaning forward, sharpness creeping into her eyes as a crooked grin splits her face.

Happy? Check.

“I come from your future. All of you are going to die unless we kill the things that destroy you.” He said simply.

Denise looked up for a moment. “What year did you come from?” she asked.

“I don’t know, we don’t keep track when I’m from,” he admitted. “And Hurricane didn’t age the way we do.”

“Naturally. What is the threat and how do you plan to stop it?”

“They’re parasites. In our ancient history, even your ancient history as far back as we are, Hurricane’s people got attacked and overrun. Their ship got lost and crashed here, and ended up buried somewhere deep in the planet, and he ended up escaping and sealing them inside.

“They have a cure in their ship, but Hurricane could only grab the prototype cure on the way out. That’s what this is.”

Orson nodded to the exposed suit as he mentioned this.

“But this one doesn’t work right and he couldn’t use it by the time he got free so we found a way to come back here before things got bad.”

“So, you don’t have an actual cure, you don’t know where it is, you don’t know where the person who might know where it is is, you don’t know when it happens, and you think you have leverage to get help by kidnapping and threatening to kill the people who want to help you? Do I have that right? –Not that I don’t believe you, this is exactly the kind of thing I expected, but if I do have that right then you need to reverse course before you make an enemy you can’t—that none of us could afford you making.”

Orson was taken off guard a little by her boldness. In her situation he felt she should have been less mouthy and more meek about her phrasing, but she did have many good points, even if he knew more than what he had said so far.

“There are two ways we know how to stop it, my arm and the real cure.

“My arm kills things that try to remove it, and I’m not entirely sure how it moved from Hurricane to myself so I don’t fully understand what to do. Maybe let the queen parasite eat me? I’m unsure.

“Hurricane believed that the people who live in this time would have ignored the threat and use my arm for something else. Something about being small minded or only seeing things in front of them. I think Hurricane can find the ship, but even if he can’t I can find it if I go into the holes. I just don’t know how long it will take.

“My arm makes me immune to the parasite but it’s eating me alive. I have to feed it electricity to keep it from feeding on my life force instead. You can see why I’d like to find a way to get closer to the ship.

“As far as when it happens, Hurricane said it started when the holes started swallowing cities. That’s happening now. Your time is short. I like to think of myself as slightly less hot headed than Hurricane, but I also don’t trust easily. Where I’m from we all have to fight each other to survive. I think the only reason Hurricane cared about me enough to stick with me as long as he did was because I have his weapon. If we can find the ship, and use the perfected cure, I don’t really care what kind of weapons you make. I just don’t want anyone to have to live like I did.

“My biggest fear is trusting you people, and being a prisoner like Hurricane is because of it. He said your soldiers thought they could solve the problems themselves, but if they could I wouldn’t have grown up in that life. So please, understand.”

Unsure if it was a show of good faith, or just raw emotion from re-living his childhood, Orson retracted the suit into his body, freeing her from restraint as well as the non-existent chair. He then used it to ‘clothe’ himself once more in his original trench coated “hobo attire”, using some of the remaining parts of the suit to re-create his robotic arm underneath.

The girl sat down on the floor, now having no chair to sit on.

“Hmm, there is the possibility of timeline splits. Do you know if you traveled back in your original time? Before you had actually done it?”

Orson sighed in response to the technobabble. He knew future tech, he could use some of Hurricane’s tech, but only in the scope of what he was taught. He really didn’t even know the name of most of the things he could use.

“I don’t know what you’re saying. The only thing I know about it is that Hurricane said if I did certain things to the terminal then it would take me back in time. He didn’t say how else it worked. In fact, he seemed to specifically not know if it would work. Also, I should have mentioned that we did reach his ship in my time, we just couldn’t get past the soldiers. Because things were so overrun it was impossible for us to fight our way through to the cure or the queen.”

“Oh, did it look like the ship could move?” She inquired. “If it was immobile it might be in the same place in this time too.”

Orson shook his head.

“No it couldn’t move, but everything looks different than it does in my time. None of your giant houses are standing and there’s plants and monsters everywhere. That’s why I want to look underground. Maybe the tunnels look the same, but, there’s so many tunnels that I could easily enter one that I don’t know and end up lost.

“If I can get close to where Hurricane and I found it, I think I’ll end up in familiar territory. Plus, hurricane was doing the navigating.”

“Mmm. You said you can go in the holes because you have the suit? So, the parasites are coming from them?”

“Yes. Maybe I could follow them backward since they’re supposed to be trapped on the ship before they escaped, but I don’t know how long they’ve been digging before the holes opened up.”

“They dig, the parasites? So they are opening the holes?”

"I don’t know. They’re different sizes but the biggest I’ve seen one without a host was about this big,"

Orson held his hands apart at a distance of about one and a half feet.

“and they're really small around. i don't know how they make the holes open up the way they do but they might be using Hurc’s people as hosts for the soldiers, so they might be big enough to have done it. Hurc said they stay by the queen though and the holes aren't all close to the ship.

“To be honest, I don’t understand that much about them from this time. I only know what I know from fighting and running from them.

“There’s some stuff about them that should be true from any time though.”

"That sounds like...Ha ha ha... no way. Worm-holes. Literal worm-holes dug by xeno-worms." She sighed. "I really wish you hadn't destroyed my phone."

"Well we did call them worms. Do you believe me?"

"Yeah, but we are in deep shit if I can't get in contact with my people and get some intel fast. Tell me, do you believe in destiny?"

"I don't know. If I can change time I don’t see much point in destiny. I'll let you go, and you can try to convince them. If they will help me as I asked I will work with them and I will try to be flexible as long as I can remain free and you get me what I want when and if I say I need it. That means if I need Hurricane you free Hurricane.

“If they can't comply with this, or if they try to ambush me instead of letting you meet me to confirm or decline my offer then I’ll kill as many of them as I can until they kill me, and your world can go to hell. Maybe you're time's me will be smarter.

“That also means nobody does anything to or against the worms or the holes unless I ok it, because you could really fuck it up if you don’t know what to do"

"You might be too late on the last one if some of the things I've read are true. Either way, I want to work with you. I don't have a way to contact you, do you have a radio or phone or something?"

"No, but I know a place you can meet me."
 
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Whitey had indeed gone back to his bed with his dame. She ran a hand gently down his chest while smiling at him.

"You know, Whitey, I know we’re not super serious or anything, but we’ve been fooling around for a while on and off, and I gotta know- I’ve NEVER seen your roommate bring home a girl before, LIKE EVER, is he… you know...a bender? " She began asking hesitantly.

Whitey sort of looked away from her for a moment, perplexed and in deep thought. Now that he thought about it, though he had only been living with Clif for a few years now, he really did never bring home a girl. Not even once.

He was into the dames, Whitey knew that for sure, but Clifton was almost always rejected by them. Doll's hardly gave him a second glance, not because he was an Airedale, but the sap had no class, and was always stumbling over himself, especially in front of them. Not exactly keen with the ladies with that attitude.

Whitey wasn't going to be deluded, though, he knew there was SOME chunk of lead out there that would eventually be interested in him and his hooey someday, it was just a matter of time... maybe?

"Eh, Probably. Who knows. Don’t worry, though dollface, I'm for LADIES ONLY~" Whitey shrugged it off while smiling at her and pulling her closer.

"You BETTER be, or else!" His dish replied back, satisfied with his answer and smiling.

"Haha, yeah, alright," Whitey rolled his eyes while responding.


The eager, young Officer arrived at Shamrock Police Station uneventfully, in comparison to this morning, and was immediately greeted by an orange-haired, freckled and fit young man about his age and size porting his same uniform, a beautiful Asian woman, and a tall, bulky African-American man, who all look happy to see him.

"Chase! Keiko! Tripp!" He greeted, smiled, and waved at them as he approached.

"Cliffy boy! About time you got here! Hey, did you feel that earthquake earlier?!" The freckled, orange haired man that was also his best friend since they were mere lads, Chase Fallon, chuckled and smiled at seeing him.

"Hello, Clif! And of course he did, love, the whole city practically felt it!" The beautiful Asian woman he knew as Keiko Fallon, who also happened to be his best friends wife, greeted him.

"Glad you made it one piece. Anyway, the Chief wants to see us. All of us. Says he has a new lead on that serial Killer that was just found last night... After another murder," The bulky African-American man, Tripp Mugnai, got straight to the point.


"Whoa, really?! We better get going, then!" Clif replied, sort of being overwhelmed, but he was honestly a bit used to it around them.


The quartet made their way through the Station and into the Police Chief’s office, where Chief Theron Bradford, an elderly, gray-haired, round, man was patiently waiting for them. The Chief was practically a father to Clifton and had a surprisingly gentle demeanor despite his appearance and strict personality upon first meeting.


"Ah, there you four are. Good to see you all," The Police Chief greeted them as genuine as he could, but it was clear he was troubled.

"What’s up, Chief? I heard we have a new lead on the serial Killer to go investigate?" Clif asked, confused.


"Last night, despite how some would rather us not enter the place, we investigated a murder of a patron and it only took investigators last night one look to link the murder to the serial Killer we’ve been after, and it was at that fancy Gentlemen’s club: Club Envy," Chief Bradford explained.

"That extravagant ‘Rich-Kids only’ place? Seems like the LAST place a serial Killer COULD or WOULD be, isn't it?" Tripp asked, wondering how they killer got past the security the place must have been able to afford.

"Not exactly. Just because they have money doesn’t mean they’re right in the head, and they could know someone who knows someone-- This City is FULL of surprises, you know," Keiko retorted, debunking Tripps doubts.

"Yeah," Clif nodded, agreeing with Keiko.

"Well, however they got there we have to at least check it out," Chase reeled everyone back on track.

"Chase is right," The Chief agreed with the red-head, adding, "That club is full of beautiful women from all over the world and powerful men from CEO’s to possible crime syndicate leaders-- who knows-- There’s a whole diversity of people there despite the wealthy requirement and if there is even a ONE PERCENT chance of our Killer being there, we should investigate. The girls there said one their singers witnessed the murder, but she passed out and spent the night in the hospital. She’s back now, though, and seems cooperative."

"Well, don’t you worry Chief, Cliffy and I will GLADLY question ALL of the beautiful women—" Chase began, but then was promptly interrupted by an elbow to his solar plexus, courtesy of his apparently possessive wife and he chuckles despite his pain, shooting his wife an ‘I’m kidding’ smile and adding, "Ooooooon second thought maybe Clif can proooobably handle this one on his own!"

"Mm-HM," Keiko responded dryly, with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, Clif? The Owner of Club Envy agreed to only let ONE of us in anyway… and only for a little bit of questioning… Not that this “world” is exactly FOREIGN to you, but…" Chief Bradford turned to the young, brunette Fuzz.


"…Not at all, Sir. I’ll do whatever I have to to protect the citizens of Shamrock," Clif eagerly accepted the task, borderline cheering.

"Excellent, that’s what I like to hear! Here’s the information on and directions to Club Envy. Get going and good luck… Oh, and take Tripp with you, he'll be your partner for this one," The Chief ordered, adding that last remark with a wink as if to suggest Trip the better option than Chase to take to the club.

"Of course, Thank you, Sir," Clif nodded and almost chuckled.

After the debriefing, the two drove to the Fancy Club known as Club Envy.
 
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[/div][/div][div class="start hide"]"--ude where are you taking me?" there was a loud wind on the other end and something else unidentifiable as the caller shouted over both.


"C.W.? What's--" Gear interrupted before the hacker finished their question: "Who's calling you, kid?" Not waiting for a response he continued: " Almost at the limit for normal phones and I don't have fuel to turn arou--" The hacker shushed him when their friend started talking again.


"--et we could tune up your suit at that auto shop there, dude! There on 3rd!" she was still shouting but it sounded like she wasn't directing it at the phone.


"What suit? Why is it so windy?" Why did she call me for this?


"Ooh, I've always wanted shoes from that Giselle Parcelli's shop on the corner of Main and East! Can you stop there?"


"Giselle Pars...GPS? Oh no." The student's phone vibrated as a warning that it had lost cellular signal, the hacker tossed it into the next seat and reached into a bag at their feet as they spoke. "Got it! Gear, do you have people in New York?"


"Not right now, no. Is something going on?"


"Shit. Yeah, dangerous stuff happening there right now. Nevermind."


The hacker fumbled their phone as the boat crested a wave that rocked the vehicle. Upon picking it back up the hacker noticed they hit the end call button as they picked it up.


"Crap. Load faster, Lappy." They spoke to the laptop they had pulled out of a nearby bag. The custom OS opened and the hacker logged in with the password that took them directly into the tracking program.


"Pull the call info from the phone...Oh, it had my app. Bless your heart, C.W. Let's listen in again."


There was just the sound of wind whipping across the microphone. That stopped after a few minutes. A man said something, but it was muffled and unintelligible. There was a clatter, like something small and rigid hit a hard floor, followed by what sounded like a bundle of cloth, then shuffling as the microphone sounded like it was rubbed against a pocket.


The phone's cameras now showed it being pulled out of a hip pocket of a nice set of suit pants, it briefly caught a glimpse of the woman in the suit, unconscious and stripped of her top. More importantly the camera on the other side captured a short video of the man who had pulled the phone from the pocket: his right arm was stretched around out of frame and matched the color of the bindings on the woman, he had grey streaks in his brown hair, but he didn't look old, the skin that was visible was covered in scars. He glared at the phone for a moment before the video spun wildly before stopping with one camera facing what looked like a warehouse ceiling and the other pointed at a set of black sunglasses.


The sunglasses had text appearing and scrolling across them but the camera wasn't focused correctly. The hacker tried adjusting the zoom, but something knocked into the phone and that camera only saw black. A moment later the other camera now pointed at a different part of the ceiling saw a shoe sailing over it, and the view adjusted once more. The man was visible again, upside down, he was balling up the suit's pants and throwing them over, they thumped somewhere behind the phone. He pointed at the pile of clothes and accessories with his right hand and static crept into the video, there was a moment of bright light and then nothing. The signal had been terminated.


The hacker quickly sent the final coordinates of the phone to the private investigator "posing" as an FBI agent; wondering as they did anytime they talked with him if he figured out he has a real badge with a pension. He replied with a quick thanks.[/div][div class="wait hide"]>>Nothing to do now but wait.[/div][div class="phone1 hide"] [/div][div class="phone2 hide"] [/div][div class="nosig hide"]>>Still no signal. Put the phone away.[/div][div class="report hide"][div class=title]MushiHime's Bot Report #0000000000[/div][div class="table hide"]
[div class=FBIa]FBI[/div][div class=FBIa]CIA[/div][div class=FBIa]KGB[/div][div class=FBIa]MI6[/div][div class=FBIa]DoD[/div][div class=FBIa]MIB[/div][div class=FBIa]Heph/Faus[/div][div class=FBIa]Public[/div]
[div class=error]No connection?! No signal! The end has come! The Skynet has fallen! All our base are belong to them! #ERROR! Unable to fetch report #0000000000[/div][div class="FBI hide"]#ERROR![/div]
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[div class="comp hide"]>>Obviously no internet either. Put the computer away.[/div][div class="rest hide"]"Kid, you have checked that phone and computer then sighed every 5 minutes since we got on the water; you sure you don't need to talk about it or something?" Gear had to raise his voice to be audible over the whine of the speedboat's engine.


"Sorry, just worried about a friend but I'm powerless out here. I need internet access to help her."


"Ah, well, when we get to the ship you'll have internet again, but that will be a little while."


"Mm. Bleh. I need something to do to take my mind off this. Any suggestions?"


"You tell me, you and Lung packed most of the boxes."


Upon hearing her nickname Lung looked up from the knives she'd been sharpening and polishing to say "Yoo keep han's busy, busy han's busy mine," she tapped her temples with a pair of blades at the last word, mind. She nodded and went back to work with the polishing rag.


"I guess I could work on the prototype for my thesis. Good idea, Lung."


"Thesis? That's the paper you present to earn a degree, yeah? What do you need a prototype for a paper for?"


"I guess I'll have to write the paper too, but mine is a project," the student pulled a modified motorcycle helmet out of a box they'd had on their lap. Wires threaded inside through the outer shell at measured intervals, three wires in each hole all trailing back into the box where loads more wire and sensors waited.


"This helmet will scan and record brain activity and neural pathways and those records will be readable to a special program I've written for the task. In other words a true artifical intelligence based on a very real one."


"Uhh, that sounds a little impossible. No offense."


"It was. Well, is. You'd need a supercomputer far more powerful than anything we have right now, one capable of a trillion trillion trillion calculations per second. Luckily for me I have devised a shortcut."


"How...do you think you can get around that?" Gear chanced a look away from the open ocean whizzing past to see the student's wicked grin as they moved wires and connected things to them and the helmet.


"By not trying to emulate the calculations for a body. Think of how much is required to regulate a healthy body: blood flow, breathing, digestion, temperature regulation, balance, spatial awareness, all of that would be useless for an emulated brain. Sight and hearing are the only passive senses it should need, granted it might want the others."


"An AI that has...wants. Why? Just because you can?"


"Of course not, the intent is to make a copy or backup of the subject's brain, of them in effect. With potential use for medical application, though that hinges on the ability to write from the program back onto a physical brain."


"It...clones them?"


"Kind of? It would be them in all but body and spirit depending on your beliefs. Their memories, knowledge, personality, everything that makes them them."


"That sounds...wrong somehow. Isn't this incredibly dangerous too?"


"Yes, it is dangerous. Setting aside that it is experimental technology that is directly interfacing with the brain, some minor modifications give it a plethora of military applications as well. Moral and ethical concerns aside it could revolutionize treatment of many brain-affecting diseases and conditions like alzheimer's or amnesia. Not to mention use in diagnosis or treatment in mental illness.


"But my goal for it is to create a database of all human knowledge. With the contributions of experts in every field it is possible to get something very close. Obviously it would need a way to be updated, history is written every day and science is always pushing forward, but that is part of where that program comes in handy. It should be able learn like we do after some tweaks."



"So, a learning AI that knows everything humans do?"


"Pretty much, yeah. My copy of it is going to have the same access to everything that I have, barring physical limitations. That way MushiHime can truly be a digital entity." Gear turned to look at the student again as they fussed with more wires, his mouth just slightly open.


"I guess that would be making me immortal and pretty powerful in this digital age. Is that vain or petty that I would want that for myself?"Gear turned back to the ocean in front of them. The student continued working on the helmet, seeming unbothered by his silence.


We need to do that to make sure the program doesn't get used for the wrong things. And that is the only way to do so.


*****


It was night by the time they could see the luxury cruise ship in the water. Gear steered the speedboat they'd driven the SUV onto around one side of the large ship, into the middle of a formation of cables.


"In position, bossman," he spoke into the radio. There was a mechanical whir and the cables moved up in sync with each other and the speedboat was hoisted from the water and into an open hatch in the deck of the ship which closed as the winch arm lowered the boat and itself below, onto some kind of stand. While Gear tied some things down and clamped latches another man's voice came over the radio.


"Stop calling me 'bossman'. And welcome aboard our ship, the Amphitrite. Hey, Lung?" he started speaking in Chinese while she nodded at the radio.


"Come this way, I will take you to the room that is yours," she spoke in overly formal Japanese, and then in English "Oh, sah-ree, yoo speak, ah, nihongo?"


"Yes, I speak Japanese. Dad made sure of it. Please, lead me to the room," the hacker replied in Japanese. Is she really trilingual? No wonder she has a hard time with English.


They rode a smooth-feeling elevator which took them to a hallway that would have looked right at home in a luxury hotel. Lung strode out into the hall and stopped a few doors away from the elevator and punched a code into the keypad on the wall by the handle, which opened the door.


"This will be your room."


It was very nice; spacious, plush carpet, attractive wood finish on the furniture, with creamy blue patterned wallpaper, big soft bed, sturdy looking desk, large dresser, walk-in closet, full bathroom attached with what looked and felt like marble fixtures.


"No wonder people go on cruises..."


"Haha, yeah it is nice," the man's voice startled the hacker back to the present situation. A huge black man with closely shaved salt and pepper hair and a neatly trimmed goatee stood in the doorway. He gave a small wave as they looked at him.


"I'm Head, leader of this little group of mercenaries, you've already met Lung and Gear. Our last guy is asleep right now but you'll probably meet him tomorrow. Lung can come get you for breakfast, and we can talk more then. But I know you've had a long day of travel and it is late, so I'll get out of your hair unless there was something you needed?"


*****


"So you want to work for us?" Head spoke around the french toast.


"Mhm, you guys do the kind of work I'm glad to help with. It'll make me feel better about being here too, less like a freeloader."


"Haha, you could eat 50 pounds of steak a day while not lifting a finger to help and I'd still call it even with as much as I owe your dad," he had an easy laugh and the slightest hint of a Carribean accent.


"Ugh, 50 pounds of steak a day would be horrible. And I'm not my dad. You don't owe me anything as far as I am concerned. Just let me help out with information or tech. I may not be able to help with the guns or that stuff, but I can do computers."


"No, you aren't him for sure. But we are still in your debt, the information you gave us for the last job made sure Lung and I made it back here without any extra holes. And truth be told our info guy went dark after a hole opened in Shanghai, which is why we asked you for help," he looked into his coffee for a few moments while the table went quiet.


"Sorry. I have a friend looking into those for what it's worth."


"Haha, of course you do! You'd hardly be a world-class hacker if you didn't have important friends around the globe. Fine, you've got the job. I'll take you to the computer room after we eat, but for now we need to toast to our new partner!" Head started pouring more of his "secret cocktail" into the glasses of the 5 mercenaries at the table.


"What, no! I can't drink more of that! I'm not old enough to drink!"


"Wrong, international waters. And this is only half strength since someone decided to use up some of the ingredients cooking," Head glared at the resident cook, Fin.


"Well, I'm not going to serve subpar food even to you pigs," Fin smiled and raised his glass. "To our newest member!"


"To a new friend!" Gear raised his glass.


"To an ohl' fren'." Lung raised her glass.


"To a bright future!" Head raised his glass.


"Uh, to adventure?" the mercenary raised their glass.


They all bumped glasses together and downed the sweet and deceptively potent drink.


"Gah, how do people drink this on a regular basis?" the mercenary gasped as their face began to flush from the alcohol. The four more experienced mercenaries just laughed in response.


*****


The hacker was led to the computer room and shown the basics to access the stuff here. They plugged a laptop into the router and typed a few quick lines out before unplugging it.


"Cool, should I set up my box in here?" They closed the laptop and turned to Head.


"If you want. We put you in a room that has priority high speed access, we'd just need to pull out some cables, so you can do it in there too. Your choice," Head shrugged as he said it.


"I think I'd rather set up outside my bedroom, keep me from being cooped up in there all the time. I'll use my spare in there though, so we can still pull those cables," they gently patted the laptop under their arm.


"Alright. I thought you might not want to get bothered while you are working. It's just us 5 and 2 of the older kids that have access to this room, but the kids and Fin like to bring some of the younger ones in here."


"I think that'll be fine, and it's not like no one can bug me in my room."


"True, but this is my boat so I get to go where I want, not that I will; and Lung is security so she needs to be able to go anywhere. The other 2 don't really care if the kids are around while they work but I thought you might not like that, since yours is more delicate work."


"Haha, delicate? You saw me typing a minute ago right?"


"Yeah? I thought you were just connecting to the wi-fi."


"That too, but I started a search for some stuff that came up on the drive to the docks. I expect about a 3 hour wait before my results come in, assuming nobody sent me any emails or private messages. My work is a lot of waiting and a lot of reading. I could use a distraction once in a while."


Head shook his namesake. "Fucking hackers. Suit yourself then."


"Hey, at least I'm on your side. Besides, I can probably help out at least one of the others in my downtime."


"True, it will be nice to not have to call or message you for info since you'll be on-hand. Alright, let's get your stuff out of the vic and set up."


"Vic? The car has a name?"


"Vehicle, I guess I'll be teaching you the lingo while we do this."[/div][div class="back hide"]>>Reset[/div][div class="wise1 hide"]Did you mean to hang up on the call?[/div][div class="wise1go hide"]>>Yup, let's do this.[/div][div class="wise1back hide"]>>Nah, I mis-clicked. Sorry.[/div][div class="wise2 hide"]Very well; here we go.

The hacker hangs up on their friend and puts their phone away.

"Someone calling you, kid?" Gear looked back.

"Telemarketer, can't block 'em all. So, if you're Gear, and she's Lung, what are the other names?"

"We've got Head leading our merry band, does most of the talking, he should have reached out to you before we picked you up?" He made the last part a question as he answered.

"He did, it's just the three of you then?"

"No, we only have four who go into the field, which is why we have the names, but we've got a big support network. Fourth's a guy named Fin, he cooks and is really good at overhearing things when people think they're alone, if you catch my meaning."

"He cooks and spies? What does that have to do with fins? Is he some kind of fish person? Oh, is he one of the Deep Ones like from Lovecraft's books?"

"What? No! One: fish people aren't real. Two: how would that be sneaky and unnoticable? Three: would you want to eat steak made by a fish guy?"

"One: yes, they are I'll show you the proof when I get my computer unpacked. Two: obviously he's got disguises and stuff. Three: probably not, but I bet they'd make great sashimi. And if he isn't a fish person then why is his field name Fin?"

"You take issue with Fin, but not Gear, Lung or Head?"

"Yeah, it doesn't fit. Head leads the group, you are the driver and or mechanic, I don't know what Lung does yet but I'll assume it fits. But Fin is a cook and spy so wouldn't something like Knife or Burn fit better?"

"Not how we choose our names, but man I hadn't thought about that for mine. Like gears in a transmission? It'll be nice to have another smart person around. Even if they do believe in the crack-pot theories like fish people."

"They really are real, and how do you choose your names if they aren't based on what you do?"

"well, it isn't my place to tell how the rest got their names, but as for me it was on my third or so field mission, before Lung's time, and your dad was still running around with us every once in a while."

The hacker leaned in eagerly awaiting the story.[/div][div class="wise2go hide"]>>Listen to story[/div][div class="wise2back hide"]>>Skip it, gramps[/div][div class="wise3 hide"]

Volume warning: loud[/div][div class="wise4 hide"]The hacker listens to Gear's tale of action, adventure, comedy, and triumph. But this tale provides a crucial distraction for the driver of the speedboat and they go slightly off-course. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem.

"And that's why my name is Gear."

"Woah, that's awesome. A whole freight ship full of pirates..." The hacker took a moment to contemplate the tale.

"Pretty common over in the west side of the Indian Ocean as I would come to learn over the next few years--" Gear stopped talking as the speedboat's engine sputtered out and stopped. Lung stirred from her meditative pose to look at Gear and then out at the open ocean around them.

"Yoo seh we ha' enough to make i' bak."

"We did, it only took a third of a tank to get there. We should be able to see it from here."

"Can't we use the radio to call them to us?"

"Normally yes, but it took a bullet near the battery connector on the last outing so it only works when the boat has power. I would have fixed that by now normally, but Head rushed us out to grab you. I also would have normally refueled at the docks, but they were gone thanks to this whole hole business."

"Do you have a satellite phone?"

"Lung, you have your phone?"

She shook her head as she pulled out 2 chunks of yellow plastic with a pair of bullet holes along the edges that would have connected them.

"And mine is charging in the workshop. Great. I guess I'll get the oars out. Why do the easy missions always turn into shit shows?"

The 3 each took an oar and began rowing in oppressive silence. The waters got increasingly more turbulent as time wore on and eventually the weather shifted to pouring rain. With the limited visibility from the dark and the storm Gear was the first to see a problem as the boat crested a wave.

"Brace for impact!" The shout cut through the rain and waves as Gear dropped his oars and grabbed the railing, Lung dropped her oar and grabbed the railing near her with one hand and wrapped her arm around the hacker with an impressive strength as the hacker gripped the railing with both hands. The three each felt their stomach lurch as the boat began descending down the wave in a near nosedive. The hacker closed their eyes hoping it would help.

The boat smashed into the water below and submerged, the water surged over them and they felt the weightlessness of drifting in water before the pain in their ribs and arms registered and forced their eyes open. It was darker than it had been and no matter where they looked they couldn't tell where the surface was, they couldn't see the boat or the mercenaries, just inky darkness. The pain in their ribs forced a cough out of them and the bubbles drifted down towards their feet, the water around them grew darker at that and they tried to right themself towards the surface but the pain in their arms made itself known again, which forced a gasp followed by a choking fit on the seawater that rushed in.

Once the hacker regained control they looked to their own murky form and saw the arms bending in the wrong places. They felt oddly at peace seeing that as darkness swept in from the edges of their vision. They knew their work was unfinished, that people still needed them, that they could have done so much. But none of it mattered now. They wouldn't need to hide anymore. They felt peace hold them and they knew they would be with their father soon.[/div][div class="reset hide"]>>Start over[/div]
 
Marcus knocked on the door to his prime suspect's house. He had been working a missing persons case from five years ago, Dana Jackson, a young woman, 23 years old, working at a local diner. No known enemies, no spurned boyfriends or ex-lovers, no signs of a struggle in the diner or in the parking lot near her car the night she went missing, none of her coworkers noticed anything out of the ordinary that night. Police never found any evidence that would point to kidnapping, but her family swore that she wouldn't have just took off in the night with no warning, and certainly not without her car. Lead detective suspected something was up, but a lack of any evidence or new leads led to the case going cold. Marcus waited a few minutes with no answer and knocked again. His suspect was an older man, late forties, fit for his age due to an active lifestyle. He was a regular at the diner, stopped in every day after his afternoon jog. Friendly enough fellow by all accounts, generous tipper, employees had nothing but nice things to say and were on a first name basis with him. Even a veteran detective could have written him off as a suspect, he was at an office party the night of her disappearance, had a dozen witness to confirm, rock solid alibi. Marcus had one crucial piece of insight that undermined this alibi however. Dana herself. She was dead, as was assumed even by her family at that point, but she had yet to move on from this world. She had come to him shortly after her family came to him with the case, they both just wanted closure, and Marcus wasn't one to turn away a suffering soul. He took the case, luckily her family could afford to pay, so he didn't have to work pro bono. Dana had told him what had happened to her, how he had grabbed her in the parking lot after her shift had ended that night, how he kept her in his basement for months, how he and his friends had...well you get the picture. He wasn't so much prime suspect as he was guilty piece of shit, but ghost stories don't hold up in court, so Marcus had to find some evidence. As if on cue Dana appeared next to him, she said nothing, but looked at him with a face that conveyed a mixture of determination and anxiety.

After a few more minutes with no answer Marcus knocked on the door once more, significantly louder. He heard frantic movement from inside and the sound of a door slamming and a door chain rattling and then slower, more composed footsteps approaching the front door. Marcus didn't like the sound of that, he shouldn't be panicking, not unless he knew Marcus was coming, or he had another victim. Marcus looked at Dana and nodded towards the obscured basement window hugging the ground behind the flower bed. She nodded back in understanding, walking through the front door. The man opened the door halfway, his right arm and shoulder hidden behind it, as he leaned against the doorway, his graying hair hastily slicked back. Marcus could see Dana walk into the kitchen, and take a left, he made a mental note of this as the man spoke.

"Um, hello there, can I help you?" he said, clearly surprised, but playing it off well.

"I believe so," Marcus began, "are you Robert Muller?"

The man was about to respond, when a loud crash rang out from within, followed by panicked screaming.

"WHOEVER YOU ARE HELP ME I'VE BEEN KIDNAPPED!" the voice yelled.

The man's face went from friendly to angry as Marcus heard an ever so familiar shrieking in his ear, diving to the left instinctively as gunshots rang out from the doorway. Bullets ripped through the door and flew through where Marcus used to be, continuing across the street, shattering a parked car's window and putting a hole in the side of a building. Nearby people began to flee and scream, as Marcus ran back up the steps and threw his full weight against the door, knocking Robert down and the gun out of his hand. Robert stood up and moved for the gun, as Marcus charged him, slamming his shoulder into his back. Robert lost his footing once more, falling forward into the kitchen on his front, as Marcus put his foot on the gun, and used it to slide the gun behind him and out the front door. Robert began to pull himself up using a kitchen chair, panting and holding out one arm in surrender. Marcus knew a bluff when he saw one, he was too fit to be this winded already. He sidestepped as Robert threw the chair, but was caught off guard as he also charged straight at Marcus, tackling him into the wall, knocking some pictures onto the floor. Marcus grabbed the back of Robert's shirt and brought his knee up into his gut twice, causing him to release his grip, then Marcus stepped to the side, slammed Robert face first into the wall, and then threw him across the kitchen counter, knocking everything off of it as a result. Robert struggled to get up, genuinely this time, the sound of sirens rang from the street as Marcus unlocked the basement door. Before he could make his way down the steps, two officers rushed in the front door and called for him to stop moving and put his hand up. Marcus did as commanded and walked into full view to be clear that he was complying. As he knelt, per the officers' request, Robert stood from behind the counter and rushed at Marcus with a butcher knife, earning him two shots to center mass. Robert lay there dead and bleeding, and Marcus couldn't help but notice a satisfied look on Dana's face as she looked at his still warm corpse.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You should know that a man with the power of nature can bring you to the end of your lu-uck. And you should know by my stride and the look in my eye that you're about to be massively f-

HOY!

"GAH FACK!" Damian cried as his favorite song (of the week) was interrupted by the shrill shriek of Wind Waker Link's sister.

The sound bit looped until Damian answered the call.

"Hello?" Damian asked, having not bothered to look at caller ID.

"Hey Damian, A couple of officers, Durnan and Clefton, will be by for my case notes, I'll text you pictures of them so you know who to let in" Marcus began, "Also I'm probably gonna be home late tonight, they're keeping me for questioning, and I'm pretty sure they don't like me here"

Damian raised an eyebrow in amusement and smiled deviously,

"So what you're saying is it's pizza night?" Damian chuckled, and Marcus followed suit.

"Are you gonna actually save me any this time?" Marcus struck, holding back his smile.

"We'll see, do the crime and all that" Damian parried.

"Just don't have all of your friend over for a party you little shit" Marcus riposted,

"Ow fuck, touche..." Damian chuckled in defeated amusement.

"See you later Damian" Marcus said.

"Later bro," Damian replied.

Damian felt an uneasy feeling in his gut. Probably due to him not having eaten since breakfast, but also because he was worried about Marcus. Marcus had a job that went one of two ways with law enforcement. They either respected him as an investigator and accepted that he had skills useful to the case, or they thought his success made them look bad and were hostile toward him. Not in a physical way mind you, just in a refusal to cooperate, and "you're nothing but a vulture living off of other peoples hard work" way. Damian knew it was a bit irrational, and that the real life police don't suffer from seedy underworld corruption as much as television and movie media make it seem, but he couldn't help but worry that some on-the-take mob cop is gonna whack Marcus and leave him to sleep with the fishes. Damian chuckled at the absurd vocabulary used in his thought process, and calmed himself down a bit. He decided to put the finishing touches on that old TV that Mrs. Gonzales gave him when she got her new smart TV. She seemed surprised in his interest in the old thing when he asked what she had planned to do with it, but Damian explained that he had some old school game consoles, and that they always looked better on old school equipment. Truth be told, Mrs. Gonzales still looked confused at that explanation, but Damian chalked that up to her being in her late 70's and English being her second language. He was just about done with repairs when he heard a knock on the apartment door. He got up and walked over looking through the peek hole. He grinned to himself and stepped back from the door.

"Halt!" Damian shouted imitating a Skyrim Guard, "City's closed with dragons about. Official business only."

The girl on the other side of the door laughed for a second, before responding.

"Riverwood calls for the Jarl's aid." she stated with authority.

Damian smiled, and gasped in mock surprise.

"Riverwood's in danger, too?" he began, as he started unlocking the door, "You better go on in. You'll find the Jarl at Dragonsreach, atop the hill."

He opened the door to let the girl in, she was approximately 5'6", just an inch taller than Damian, with shoulder length dirty blonde hair, and green eyes. She was also very naturally pretty, and had a nice figure, (er- not that Damian was looking or anything...) that was concealed at the moment behind an over-sized t-shirt and a pair of sweats. This was Robin McBrayer, she lived across the hall with her mother Melody, and has been Damian's best friend since he and Marcus moved in.

"And that's the reason I'm voting you most likely to usurp Elon Musk" she quipped as Damian shut the door behind her, re-locking the copious security measures.

"I'll only accept if we can Photoshop me into that Tesla he put in space..." Damian retorted, spacing out as he imagined the possibilities.

"Hey, did you hear me?" Robin asked flicking Damian in the nose to break his trance.

"Hmm? Sorry Ro, what was that?" Damian asked, now looking at his guest.

"I asked if that was Mrs. Gonzales' TV?" she replied, an amused grin on her face.

"Oh yeah, well not anymore" Damian said, moving to hook up his SNES to test the old girl out.

"Oh, stealing from old ladies now are we?" Robin said with a grin, "What delivering flowers for Holly not pay enough these days?"

"Oh ha ha" Damian said sarcastically, turning the system and the TV on, "keep it up and I'll have to deploy my, SECRET WEAPON!!!!"

Damian reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out his old beaten up copy of Sim Ant, presenting it in front of him like a cross to a vampire.

The amusement drained from Robin's face as she gazed upon that most baleful of 90's relics.

"Oh no not THAT," she began in exasperation, "That game is so BOOOOORING!"

"ANTS!" Damian declared fervently.

"Fine you win fuck," she grumbled, "anything but fucking Sim Ant"

"AHA!" Damian cried, "Add it to the the tally!"

They both approached a small chalkboard that sat next to the doorway to the kitchen. It was a simple T chart with two names, Damian and Robin. Under Robin there were thirteen tallies, and under Damian, with the addition of this new tally, there lay two.

"The rebellion grows stronger" Damian said, his voice barely a whisper.

Robin giggled and tapped his arm.

"Come on dumb-ass" she said, "let's play King of Dragons"

"Cool, start it up" Damian replied, "I'm gonna order some pizza first"

"Oh, is Marcus working late tonight?" Robin asked coyly.

"Yeah he finished a case and the fuzz have in answering questions" Damian replied, not noticing her tone of voice.

"Alright well hurry up" she said, amused at his lack of awareness.

Damian had played it off well, but his Psycho-Empathy alerted him to a change in her behavior, one that sent chills down his spine. He had a feeling that something unusual was going to happen tonight. Not that he minded, it was a good chill after all.
 
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After a rather silent car ride (Tripp was always the quiet one in their group) Clif pulled up to the beautiful, gleaming, emerald building. He slowly exits his bucket, not taking his eyes off of the place. The building was shining like the sun and as green as sin. After he was done admiring the outside, he took a deep breath, turned exchanged glances with Tripp (who remained stoic, but possibly was impressed himself based on his slightly raised eyebrows and subtle, small nod), and entered the beautiful but notorious Club Envy.

Everything in the lounge seems to be made out of polished marble and ivory, and is as green as the Club’s name would imply, but in a tasteful fashion mostly said in the valuable gem, Emeralds, whose color matched.

Clif doesn’t have time to admire the scenery for very long, however, because a waitress with freckles blanketing her cheeks to match her light-orange colored, braided hair happened to walk by and notice him. She decides to greet him with a hearty smile and a slight giggle.

"Well, Howdy thar, costumed stranger!" She began her greeting in a rather heavy southern accent, "I’m Jessie! Jessie McCallister! Ah dun thank ah’ve seen ya ‘round here fore! Who maight ya be n’ wai ya wearing those there costumes for? Didn’tcha know Halloween ain’t fer a few months?"

The accent takes Clif a bit by surprise, given where he was, and he sort of gaped for a moment before properly responding to her and correcting her misconception.

"O-oh, uh, hello, I’m Clif Brownside, and this is my partner, Tripp Mugnai!" He began, thinking he was off to a good start until he saw her face now have a blank expression and go a bit pale, but continued anyway, "Uhm, i-it’s not a costume; I’m actually th-the officer the SCPD sent over to question the Singer who may have seen the murder last night?"

The smile on the waitress clearly fades, and almost turns into a frown as Clif and Tripp show her their buzzers to prove they were real coppers. She remains silent for a moment, but then she sighs and nods to herself, looking at him in the eyes as if examining him. Clif couldn't help but get the feeling she didn’t mistake his uniform for a costume at all, but rather more like she had HOPED it was.

The young Fuzz felt down he was only in here for about a minute or so and already he was disappointing someone... He glanced over at Tripp who gave him a look before directing his attention back to Jessie.

"Raight then. Follow meh," The ginger waitress sighed as she motioned for the officers to follow her and led him from the entrance lounge to the main ballroom.


It was more exquisite than the entrance: Rich, green satin curtains adorning the windows, crystal chandeliers, tables adorned with expensive silverware and rare flowers in even rarer vases.

Despite the early hour, there were already rich patrons there, wining and dining among themselves, gossiping about anything and everything… But Clif doesn’t notice it. He doesn’t notice any of it: The first and only thing that caught his attention when he entered the ballroom was the beautiful singer on the stage in the back center of the room.

She had long, blood-red hair that was almost all pulled back in a single pony-tail except for a cute, small bit of it framing her lovely face, and wore a dress a black as ebony that sparkled as bright as diamonds... If her looks weren’t enough to take his breath away (but from how his jaw was gaping they assuredly were) her voice sure was. She was singing Lorenz Hart’s “You took advantage of me”.

I'm a sentimental sap, that's all
What's the use of trying not to fall?
I have no will, you've made your kill
'Cause you took advantage of me!


I'm just like an apple on a bough
And you're gonna shake me down somehow!
So, what's the use?
You've cooked my goose!
'Cause you took advantage of me…


I'm so hot and bothered that I don't
know my elbow from my ear!
I suffer something awful each time you go,
And much worse, when you're near!


Here I am, with all my bridges burned!
Just a babe in arms where you're concerned!
So lock the doors, and call me yours,

'Cause you took advantage of me.

After the song, the crowd went wild for her and her singing. The captivating woman gave a humble bow and stepped off the stage, heading towards the back.

"Wow… I've never seen a dame as gorgeous or as talented at her before..." Clif thought to himself, not being able to take his eyes off of her as long as he could see her.

"Eyes on th' prize, Doughnut shop! Ah thought ya was here to ask ‘er QUESTIONS, not ask ‘er OUT! …Heh, Ah ‘spose you DO get yer eye on a PRIZE, though, just not the one ah was talkin ‘bout…" The braided waitress gently elbowed him to get his attention and smirks as she closes Clif’s stunned, gaping mouth.

"Yeah, Clif, eyes on the prize," Tripp chuckled, yanking his chain.

"Cl-close your head..." Clif shyly retorted, looking displeased when he heard another chuckle from Tripp.

Jessie then took him by the hand and, to Clifs surprise, started leading them towards a door to the side of the stage, where the backstage might be! Where the singer had gone to!

"Wait. You mean...Her… She… She’s the… Uh… Buh…wuh… Guh…?" He began to bumble when the realization finally dawned on him.

"Ya open that mouth o’ yers any wider an’ flies’ll fly right innit! Yeah, Boy in blue, She’s who yer questionin’. ‘Er names Cora. Cora Grimm. Ya treat ‘er right, now, ya hear?" Jessie seemed to like Clif's reaction to the lovely singer, but despite that she added that last part very seriously, making it apparent the two of them were friends.

Clif wanted to pull away as he felt his face get redder and redder, but Jessie winks and smiles at him as the three passed a door and approached a hallway where a labelled door was at the end: Cora Grimm, the plate on the door read.

"Cora..." Clif thought to himself, gulping slightly as they approached the door and trying not to flinch as Jessie knocked on it. He had clearly failed when he heard a soft chuckle coming from his partner...

The door began to open slowly and Clif was certain his heart would stop, if it hadn't already!

Sure enough, the door opened to reveal that same beautiful, red-haired babe of a singer from earlier, smiling at her waitress friend and clearly letting that smile fade when she spotted Clif and Tripp.

"Jessie, my, what a pleasant surprise!" She warmly addressed the ginger, then turned to the Fuzz and, with less warmth, added with an exasperated sigh, "...And these must be the officers I heard were qu--"

"H-HELLO MY NAME IS CLIFTON BROWNSIDE I COP GOOD AND I THINK YOU'RE A REALLY GOOD SINGER AND ALSO ARE GORGEOUS!" He shouted all his words off key as his voice box failed him, nervousness clearly getting the best of him, extended his hand out to her for a handshake and nearly stabbed the poor doll with it in the process.
 
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Marcus kept an eye out as he walked home in the dark. Though dark was probably not the appropriate word as the city, even now, bustled with life. Nightfall may not have brought darkness, but it sure as hell brought cold. Marcus pulled his face mask up to cover his nose and mouth, thinking over the nights events as he walked. After he hung up with Damian he spent the next few hours in an interrogation room giving his story to the police. Naturally he omitted the parts about seeing Dana's ghost, opting to instead say he was just following up and speaking to the folks at the diner. The rest was more or less the truth anyhow. When they released him Dana's family was waiting for him, thanking him for solving the case, much to the police's chagrin. Turns out that the police had informed them of the developments, and though there was no real reason for them to come all the way out to the precinct, they did anyways. Mr. Jackson wanted to speak to the detectives in person, he was old fashioned that way. Dana herself even mouthed a thank you, before disappearing with a flash of light and a sound that loosely resembled the flapping of a birds wings. He was used to it by now, but still glanced around to check if anyone else had noticed. They didn't, which was normal, but that didn't stop him from hoping he'd find someone he could talk to about this whole ghost thing, besides the actual ghosts of course. In all honesty what he was actually hoping for was someone who had more formal knowledge about spirits. He'd tried reaching out to people before but they usually ended up being frauds or crazies. Marcus approached the door to his apartment building and dug for the keys in his pocket, he'd have to mull over his lack of friends some other time.

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"What if I wanted to break... What if I, What if I, What if I, What if I..." Robin trailed off as the song ended.

Damian clapped along with the in game audience as it began to show their score. They played King of Dragons for a few hours, but after Robin hogged the wizard for the fifth goddamn time in a row, Damian decided he wanted to play Guitar Hero Live instead. Robin agreed, knowing full well it was just Damian finding an excuse to get her to sing.

"Spectacularly done as always Songbird" Damian cheered.

"Thank you," Robin began, blushing slightly at the nickname Damian had given her, "I wish I could say the same to you...73%? On Normal? What happened buddy?"

"Oh judge all you want choir-girl" Damian retorted, "Why don't you take the guitar this time and give me the mic?"

"Oh Damian," Robin began in mock pity, "The neighbors don't deserve THAT..."

Damian made a face akin to that of McKayla Maroney after winning her silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, as he crossed his arms at Robin. She was about to say something else, when a loud knock, or more of a banging really, echoed out from the apartment door.

"Oh, is Marcus home already?" Robin asked, the faintest trace of disappointment in her voice.

"Nah it's probably those cops Marcus sent here for his notes" Damian began, grabbing the rather thick file folder and starting towards the door, "Marcus would have called me if...he..."

Damian trailed off and slowed to a halt a few feet from the door. A chill shook his body as he backed up towards Robin.

"Damian?" Robin asked, slightly amused at his newfound odd behavior, "What are you-"

Damian cut her off and pointed towards the window.

"Ro, go out onto the fire escape..." Damian said suddenly.

"What?" Robin asked again, this time worried at the serious tone of his voice, "Why? Wha-"

"GET DOWN!" Damian shouted.

Damian barely made it to her when a loud bang rang out, splintering the apartment door and sending wood shrapnel all over the place. He managed to shield her from most of the splinters as he dove with her behind the couch, closer to the fire escape. He heard footsteps enter the apartment and a voice call out orders.

"Remember, we need the target alive" it said, eliciting a confirmation from each of it's allies.

Damian could sense three in total, none of them felt like they were remotely reasonable, and didn't seem to notice them. That was subject to change however. Damian looked over at Robin, though he didn't need to, he could feel her panic, her fear. But she was also smart and level headed, and kept her breathing quiet, looking at Damian for some kind of guidance or reassurance. Damian wasn't any less scared than her, but he and Marcus had been preparing for something like this, so Damian gave her a confidant look, and gestured for her to stay put.

Damian focused, and he used his Psychokinesis to knock over one of the hanging shelves in his room. The three intruders snapped their focus in that direction momentarily, giving Damian enough time to maneuver him and Robin into the kitchen. He quietly opened the cupboard under the sink and grabbed the small trash bin that sat underneath. He then proceeded to carefully remove the plastic bag lining it, to reveal a Beretta M9 hidden beneath. Robin gave him a surprised look, and he registered an increase in anxiety with his Psycho-Empathy, and gave her a reassuring look, checking the clip and turning off the safety like Marcus taught him. He peeked his head around the corner, seeing them form up on the door to his room, preparing to enter. He turned his head back around the corner, and gestured for her to follow him, as he crept back behind the couch close to the fire escape. He kept the gun ready, though it probably wouldn't be of much use, Damian wasn't a very good shot, despite many trips to a firing range. They finished clearing his room and had begun to make their way toward the kitchen when Damian felt someone else approaching the apartment door. They were tired, and grew more relieved the closer they came, until they got within view of the door, then they became a mixture of anxious, cautious, and angry. Damian peeked around the corner of the couch as Marcus came into view in the doorway. One of the intruders noticed him, and called out to the others, turning his rifle on him. Damian thought fast, and used his Psychokinesis to slide the carpet beneath his feet back, causing him to stumble and lose his footing, which gave Marcus an opening to rush him and throw a flying knee into his face. He chained it into a roll, at the end of which he dove to bring him and one of the others to the ground in a grapple. The third turned to take aim on Marcus, but got blindsided by Damian, who brought the butt of the gun down on the back of his head, probably killing him, but Damian would worry about that later. The first intruder slowly got up into a kneeling position, reaching for his rifle, but Damian pointed his handgun at him. Marcus remained locked in combat on the ground.

"Don't move!" Damian yelled, his voice steady despite his overwhelming panic.

The intruder put his hands up and stared at Damian, his face obscured by his balaclava. He tilted his head slightly.

"You don't look too good kid," he began, "can you even see straight?"

Damian became aware of a stinging pain in his back from where the door shards hit him, and he began to lose his balance. The first intruder began to reach for his gun again, as Marcus and the second intruder finished their grapple, Marcus victorious, but pretty beat up.

"I can," Robin said, taking the handgun from Damian and pointing it more steadily at the first intruder.

The intruder put his hands back up, and Marcus walked over to him, taking his rifle and moving to the others to do the same. Damian staggered over to the fire escape and opened the window, reaching out to grab the duffel bag they keep there in case of emergencies. He slings it over his shoulder and moves to grab his hoodie as Marcus finishes gathering the rifles. Marcus gestured for Robin to hand him the gun, and pointed the rifle he was holding at the first intruder. Robin did as she was asked and moved over to check on Damian, who had no small amount of blood dripping down his back. Marcus was about to question the man, when a tremor shook their building, giving the intruder an opportunity to gain the upper hand on Marcus and take his gun back. He fired at Marcus, but he missed and Marcus rushed him once more, fighting him for control of the rifle. Another rumble hit, and Robin grabbed Damian and headed to the fire escape, helping him through the window. She tried to guide him down, but he stopped suddenly and wouldn't budge.

"Holy fuck they are real..." Damian whispered.

Robin looked to see what he was talking about and saw the ground in the distance caving in, approaching rapidly and swallowing buildings whole. She turned with Damian and went back into the apartment, rushing past Marcus and the intruder, shouting for them to run as she did. She ran across the hall to her apartment, throwing the door open and making a beeline for her fire escape. The rumbling got worse, and Damian turned towards his apartment, just in time to see the building collapse on top of Marcus and the man.

"MARCUS!" Damian yelled, as the building began to twist and crumble.

A large chink of rubble fell directly towards them, but Damian waved his arm at it, sending it flying across the "room" and into the wall, destroying it. The building kept breaking around them as they plunged ever deeper downward into darkness.
 
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Cora flinched and almost stepped back a tad, the Fuzz's sudden outburst taking her by complete surprise. Don't get her wrong, she was used to fellas falling for her and such, but this copper took it to a whole different level. Was he mental or something? Either way, Cora didn't like that she felt her face blush, even if it was just a second, and thought to deal with this embarassment in a dignified manner.

"Uhm... Right... Thank you very much, Clif, was it?" She replied, relieved she didn't have to be too aggressive in letting him down, since he seemed harmless enough, but figuring she should nip this in the bud anyway so he doesn't puppydog her, "I appreciate the compliment, but... Well, I'm going to just give it to you straight: I’ve seen it all and heard it all, You’re NOT going to impress me with chocolates, flowers, or nice words with this nice guy act. I go for about a thousand a weekend, which is MORE than what YOUR SALARY pays in a year, meaning you have about A SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN HELL of affording me, so don’t go getting your hopes up ogling me with your peeping, perverted eyes, okay, Five-Oh?"

She felt sort of bad after she said this, as Clif's face went from shy and awkward to hurt and heartbroken. It really was like kicking a puppy or stomping on a butterfly.

Clif, on the other hand, felt massive humiliation (and he couldn't help but feel worse hearing Tripp facepalm and sigh irritably at his reaction towards Cora) and hung his head low in defeat, accepting her rejection well granted he didn't want to make her like him even less and he was on the job.

"I-I’m… I-I’m sorry… I-I didn’t mean to—" Clif began, but before he could finish explaining himself he found himself being interrupted by a voice he'd never heard before...?

"CORA! Is that ANYWAY to talk to our GUESTS?!" The new voice boomed.

Everyone turned around to find said voice belonged to a cute, young blonde girl who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. She was a very cute little lady, dressed head to toe in various shades of green, and it was obvious the girl was wealthy based on how expensive her dress alone looked.
Her eyes were as blue as Sapphires, the green theme of her clothing matching the club perfectly.

Cora's expression (and it was rather blatant her mood as well) dropped as she spotted the blonde, sighing frustratingly while gritting through her teeth, "No, Jamie… I-I’m sorry."

Clif stared at Cora, already having a bad feeling this blonde little lady was biiiig trouble. He was even more heartbroken to see the troubled look on Cora's face... It was as if she was about to cry...

"You better believe it's not," This Jamie replied, her tone practically menacing.

Jamie, or at least Clifton thought it was safe to assume that was her name (since that was what Cora called her), then turned her attention to Clif, shooting him an adorable smile.

"Don’t mind her. She’s just a GRUMP. I’m Jamie. Jamie Sayre. The DAUGHTER of the Owner of this esteemed and prestigious Club," Jamie introduced herself, her tone completely opposite of how she was talking to Cora with just a few seconds ago... It was sickeningly sweet, in fact.

He wanted to tell her to leave Cora alone, but Tripp was already slowly shaking his head at him, as if reading Clif's mind. He would have to play nice for now. Clif didn’t expect to meet the daughter of the club owner at all, let alone before he actually got to question the witness. Her title certainly explains why Cora is being as submissive as she is.

"Hi, I’m Officer Clif Brownside of the SCPD, and this is my partner, Tripp Mugnai, we were just about to question the witness of last night’s murder in more detail," He formally introduces himself as he extends his hand to Jamie, smiling a not-so-genuine smile to her.

"Ooooooh! By all means! Please do! Oh, but, Daddy HATES your kind, Darling, so PLEASE try not to take too long, okay? I was a bad, BAD girl to let you in, but I couldn’t BEAR not bringing that terrible, AWFUL Killer to justice, so I broke the rules just once… I hope if Daddy finds out he forgives little ol’ me!" Jamie cooed as she shook his hand, acting as if she was flustered when she really had no reason to.

Jamie’s voice remained little too sweet, and for a moment Clif could swear her grip on his handshake tightened a little when she asked him not to be long. If her treatment of Cora wasn't enough of a red flag, it was mentioning her father hated police: Why? Did they bother him too often? Or where they a threat to the club? Clif wanted to ask why Jamie’s father hated Police officers, but Jamie turns to Cora and addresses her before he could.

"Why don’t you two talk about this in your dressing room? The walls have ears, you know, and I’d rather NOT get the Patrons all up into a situation over last night. I agreed to let them over here ONCE, so let’s make this count," Jamie "suggested" to Cora.

Jamie's "precious little angel" act, no doubt because Clif and Tripp were present, made it almost hard to tell if that was a suggestion or an order, but he could guess which one it was more like to Cora.

The singer, in response, nods quietly and motions for Clif and Tripp to enter her dressing room.
 
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The sound of a miniature rocket and muffled cries caught Murphy completely off guard, but not as much as the scene that accompanied it would once he turned to face it.

Holy shit it’s real! Was his mind’s only thought as it went blank before his instincts threw him into action.

Huffing and puffing, Keenan ran to the nearest chopper and began barking at the pilot.

“How quickly can you get this thing in the air?”

The pilot shook his head. “Can’t sir, just got orders not to pursue from higher ups.”

“What!? That’s crazy talk, get me your superior now!”

“Sorry sir, I don’t report to the FBI and I got my orders.”

“Sonova…” Keenan huffed and puffed his way over to the nearest police vehicle instead, and flashed his badge.

“Son, keys. Now.”

The officer handed him the keys and got into the passenger seat as Keenan boarded the vehicle and took off as quickly as he could in an attempt to follow the Kidnapper, but unfortunately the roads were still damaged from the earthquake.

“You realize this shit is above your paygrade don’t you?” He grunted at the officer as he wove through the damaged roads, at this point following his best guesses to try to catch up to a subject he could no longer see.

“A criminal’s a criminal, Sir, plus it’s my car you’re about to total. May as well be along for the ride.” He responded.

“Well you’re optimistic…” Keenan muttered.

Not too much time passed before Keenan’s phone erupted in a familiar vibration and tone. He had gotten a text.

Better be something useful. He thought to himself. Without stopping the car, he checked his text message.
MushiHime
them
Suit Guy Stopped There, has a hostage. Go if able, alert other authorities if able. ~<3 MH


“Good news kid, we know where he went.” He said.

Working with the young man beside him, he was able to have him relay the information to his superiors, as well as find his way to his destination as quickly as possible. What he didn’t expect, was not to be the first to arrive.

Real suits? Of course.

“Wait here.” Murphy ordered the officer as he stepped onto the scene, flashing his badge at the yellow tape men in order to gain access.

As he looked around he saw little he could get information from. There was a black spot on the concrete as if something had been ignited or combusted, and the agent who had been taken was being escorted from the area, wearing one of the other agent’s jackets to cover her nudity.

Jesus Christ what did he do to her?

As he approached he received only a wave and a thumbs up from the woman as they passed.

Unsure exactly where to turn, he thought the char marks were his best bet.

“Did we get the bastard?” He asked a man who was examining the feature.

When the man in the black suit turned to meet him Keenan noticed that it was the same pudgy agent from before.

“Negative, we have no need to dispose of him.” He responded.

“Ah, my mistake. I meant did we get him as in ‘in custody’.” Keenan clarified.

“Negative. Jones was able to verify the suspect is not responsible for the holes, nor is he working with the responsible party. Further, it seems that the missing prototype suit we were initially looking for was found.”

Keenan felt unsure about this. He was beginning to worry some federal cover-up was about to take place based on what seemed like a lack of interest in capturing the terrorist, but that might just be his suspicious nature calling to him.

“I’m not sure I follow… You’re not arresting him because he didn’t open up those holes or steal the tech, but you’re also not arresting him for the kidnapping, attacking the soldier, or clearly suspicious activity? Or are you just saying you didn’t catch him yet, and that the other bit of your answer was a side note?”

“Jones was unable to detain the suspect due to the difference in available firepower, but we have gained knowledge about his capabilities for future attempts. Further, she thinks she has some idea about his motives but our superiors are withholding that information at present.” The man answered.

“So are we waiting on orders while they get the info, or are they getting someone else to handle him?” Keenan asked.

“I do not know your orders, but Jones and myself are to follow up on her information.” The agent said.
“Speaking of orders, who is your director? And how did you get here so quickly? I had thought you were still at the other site.”

Shit. Keenan wasn’t expecting them to be looking into him so soon he would have to hope his wit was still sharp enough to cut it.

“Used the satellites to follow the bastard. Might seem quick, but as you can see you got here even quicker. First even. As for who I report to, I’ll have to recommend you send for info on that when you get finished up here. There were several personnel in my department who have yet to be accounted for after the holes and the superior who showed up was a face I haven’t seen yet. Probably promoted from out of state. On top of that, this isn’t usually my department. I’m covering for someone else who’s missing, and short notice to boot. Barely even got a proper briefing on what’s going on on my way over. They’re supposed to send out a department wide email to my division later on with the details on all the replacements and promotions later on this evening. What I can do for you right now though is give you my badge info so you can run it when you’re all done here. As far as what my orders are I’m essentially just supposed to be gathering info on a potential domestic terrorist, but it seems like despite his actions earlier that’s not what he’d be classified as, so I’m likely done here anyway. Is that satisfactory?”

Keenan was fairly certain that would be a passable story for the time being. With as many holes popping up in as many random places it wouldn’t be too farfetched to believe it, plus offering the information up front would make him seem even less suspicious, and most people were satisfied. Offering up information before your asked usually does the trick, or at least in his experience. He’d have to be sure to toss the old fake creds and have MushiHime hook him up with something new. Once they finally did check they’d know for sure he was a phony. Or so he thought.

“I have already pulled the information on your badge. The director above you is the vice-director of the domestic investigations for the nation. Of the other five field agents in your division, three are currently tracking a serial killer in Nevada, one is on administrative leave while awaiting trial for excessive use of force, and the last is on maternity leave with her newborn twins. All are accounted for as of 9pm Eastern Standard Time yesterday after the last holes opened.”

Keenan felt his heart sink. Damn Feds. He was fairly certain that impersonating a federal agent would land him in prison, and being a plump older man he wasn’t so sure his experience was enough to stop the series of visits rumored to occur in such places. Although he probably should be more worried about the people he helped put behind bars himself.

On the other hand he didn’t expect his badge to come up with any information, so perhaps he had an out after all.

“Alright, looks like you did your homework.” He “admitted.” “Sorry about the cover story, truth be told, the nature of this guy’s tech had the boss on edge. Thought it would be best to fabricate things in case of corruption in our ranks. We’re the only ones who are supposed to have this stuff after all. I guess when the boss gave me my orders he figured you wouldn’t run my information so quickly. So, you need anything else from me before I head back?”

Keenan would be glad to have an exit at this point, there wasn’t anything he could do to help further the investigation anyway, especially if they weren’t looking to track down and arrest him the old fashioned way. Besides, as much skills and experience as he carried chasing a real life space man was biting off more than he could chew. At least before he assumed it was a regular asshole attached to a hoax.

“I do not need anything from you, but I believe Jones would be angry at me if I did not tell you to thank MushiHime for her. I also believe you must work on your cover story and your poker face, Mr. Murphy.”

Keenan was visibly surprised. With as high up as these guys seemed it makes sense that they’d spot problems in his story, or that they’d run his information, but knowing who he was or the fact that he was working with the hacker? That was crazy… unless of course the government really did wire everything the way your average foil hat would like you to believe. The thought made Keenan wonder a little bit on the phrasing he used, or the fact that, although they did say they were planning to arrest him, they at first made sure to clear him of anything relevant to why, he at least, was here.

“Well then, don’t I feel silly? In that case I’ll be sure to do that. I suppose I should thank you for not bringing any hammers down on me?” He asked, posing it as more of a question about whether or not another shoe was about to drop.

“I have no cause or evidence to bring against you, agent Wallace McGregor. You are simply following orders. Please, take my card. I am sure you will have questions for Ms. Jones once she is available, and seeing as her phone was destroyed you will need and alternate contact to reach her.” The agent gestured to the scorch mark on the ground as if that was related to her phone’s destruction.

“In that case I’ll talk to our mutual friend about that. Thanks again.” Keenan said, feeling slightly defeated. Quietly, he left the warehouse and walked down the road until he found a cab, waving dismissively at the police officer as he did so.

Maybe he was over thinking it, but there was definitely something off about this whole thing. Besides the giant holes in the ground and the spaceman. Something didn’t sit right, and his gut was telling him something was wrong. Of course he always trusted his gut, so he decided he would reach out to MushiHime as he said. Upon reaching the room he had rented for the job, he sent out a text reply to the one she had sent him when she had given him the coordinates. For the most part, it just went over what happened, the fact that he felt like the feds were up to something regarding the terrorist along with a recommendation to keep an eye on it for him, and a notification that he was planning to stay in town for a few days long in case he was needed.

He wasn’t sure how much use he could be against the government, but the hacker had helped him out before, and if they asked him to he decided he would return the favor. Otherwise he’d just head back home in a few days and find some other business to stick his nose into.

Keenan ended up falling asleep on the couch however, and was awoken the next morning when his phone buzzed a response, asking if he had been referring to the agents themselves being shady or up to something.
MushiHime
them
Suit Guy Stopped There, has a hostage. Go if able, alert other authorities if able. ~<3 MH
me
Went to the site you texted. Abandoned warehouse, though you probably know that bit. Feds from the hole were there getting information, said they didn’t arrest the guy. Doesn’t sit right with me, makes me think they’re trying to use him for something based on what they said. Done chasing this guy myself most likely, not someone I can keep up with I don’t think even if I get some intel on him, plus the feds seem to be on the case and I can’t afford to get gummed up in that I don’t think. Gonna stay in town a few days anyway, would appreciate if you kept your eye on things on their end if you can. Let me know if you need me to do anything while I’m here.
them
You think the agents are being shady? ~<3MH
me
Think so, they said they weren’t arresting him but the way they said it made it sound like they might use him for something. Might just be the old man paranoia but you know how hard knocks graduates like me have to trust our gut, and mine says something’s wrong.
them
Thanks for the heads up, but everything on their networks suggest they are still out to catch him or kill him. What makes you think they’re working with him? ~<3 MH
me
I don’t know. I feel like the way they said what they said implied they let him go on purpose. Don’t remember the wording on the conversation, so you’ll have to forgive me. Could have been trying to throw me off though.”
them
Ooooh, you spoke? You had your phone on you right? Nevermind, found it. Jones, and her partner. I know you can trust Jones, but her partner was acting strange there, something about his voice bothers me too. I’ll look into that, but be careful around him for now. ~<3 MH
me
Will do, thanks.

As Murphy put the phone away, finally, he thought about the way the man spoke. How he seemed to be speaking formally and repeating certain phrases like “negative” and “further”. He hadn’t thought about it, as the FBI were supposed to be a professional agency after all, but now that the hacker said something about his voice it started eating away at him. He decided to text a picture of the card he got from the agent to MushiHime, and considered calling it to get into contact with them, but ultimately decided he would wait until tomorrow.

Today, was for getting drunk.
 
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Agent I waited patiently after her kidnapper left. Just as she was getting bored and sleepy she heard hushed voices outside the building, amplified by the acoustics of an empty warehouse.

It went quiet and still again for a moment until a door was blasted open by what sounded like an enormous shotgun at the same time a window shattered when a man in a black suit sprang through it.

The man who came through the window rolled to his feet a distance away from the window and broken glass, he brought both hands up near his face as fists he danced a quick circle in place and dropped his fists.

"All clear! I, are you injured?" He asked as he jogged over taking the coat off his familiar black suit.

"No, I'm fine, thanks. I feel bad for asking, but who are you?"

"I'm E, and K is the one back there admiring the work of a gun he doesn't often get to use," E nodded over I's shoulder to a tall, bulky man inspecting the shards of the door he must have blasted.

"You guys must have been closer than B and Q?"

"Yeah, here, cover up with my coat. B was getting a tune up for some of his gear and Q was doing some maintenance so they were at the office. They'll have a replacement suit and stuff for you, but they'll be a bit. What happened?"

"Than--" a loud squealing whir interrupted her and she and E looked towards the noise to see K holding what looked like a cross between a leaf-blower and a chainsaw belching out blue light like it was a thick liquid. She felt E shouting but she couldn't hear him over the strange device. The blue light flowed over the fragments of the door, lifting and pulling them back to the doorway, leaving them in the shape of the door as the glow faded and the sound petered out. I had slipped into the coat and buttoned it as high as she could.

"Thanks," she raised her arms to gesture to the oversized coat.

"Uh, yeah. Didn't feel right to leave you like that, ya know?" he looked away and rubbed the back of his head. I noted he wasn't wearing sunglasses but he had an earpiece in.

"Agent I, a pleasure. I am K," a slightly nasally voice called from behind. She turned to see the other man standing close and slightly bent with his hand held towards her. His face and hand were much thinner than the bulk of his suit would suggest, and he was head and shoulders taller than her and E, towering over her even with the slight bow. She shook the offered hand.

"Right, thanks for getting here so quick. Do you two have a car we can wait in?" K smiled at the question.

"No, we ran here, the roads are a little congested with everything that's going on."

"On that note, what can you tell us about this guy who grabbed you?" E came around to stand next to K.

"He seems to be bullet proof, at least to 9mm rounds. The thing he is wearing gives him incredible athletic ability. He's come from a future where the world is destroyed by the alien parasites that are responsible for the holes that are popping up," she paused to think and watch their reactions. K didn't appear to react at all and E only looked at him slightly with turned eyes before looking back at her. They must have already known something about this guy or the holes. Curious.

"Uh, he doesn't know what the internet is, or how the military works. He has some ability to shape-shift. He claims to be immune to the parasites due to his suit. He said he'd be willing to work with us with some conditions."


"What conditions?" E asked.

"He needs to be assured his own personal freedom and that we won't abuse his tech. Also, that we find his friend and free him, I think his friend is an alien and that's where this guy got the tech for his suit and to come back to this time, but I didn't get clarification on that."

"That shouldn't be too hard, there aren't many aliens on the planet that we don't at least know about, and our agency is to help them when possible."

"Good, do we know where his friend's ship might be? He wanted to look underground for it, specifically in the tunnels those holes form."

"If it is intact it would be in Area 51 or The Hidden City in China, if it is in pieces that makes it a lot harder to track down, why?"

"He said there is a 'cure' for the parasites in it that will stop them from wrecking the planet."

"K?" E looked at his partner.

"Working on it," he answered. He didn't move or say anything further. How are you 'working on it' if you aren't doing anything?

"Oh, do we have a way to prevent the Russians from tossing a nuke into their holes?" E stared at her for a moment as the gears turned in his head.

"...R! We need a black out now!" He pressed a hand to his earbud. Good, he isn't a total meat-head.

Flashing lights began filtering in the windows and cars could be heard moving towards the building. After the police had spoken to the three agents they established the perimeter and prevented reporters and the public from entering, allowing only their higher-ups or other agents in. T showed up not long after that and got a quick recap before going to talk to some other agents who left in a hurry. E and K stuck close to I and she noticed that most people who glanced her way quickly averted their eyes.

She made small talk with E and learned he was a former spec ops officer who had an encounter with aliens and was swiftly reassigned to the MIB once he tried to talk about it. He loves the new job despite not being what he signed up for and the pay is apparently just as nice so that didn't hurt things either. K was still busy with whatever he was doing and she only got him to reveal that he was actually quite thin and his bulky appearance came from the armory frame he had in his suit that held a huge assortment of weapons both mundane and otherworldly.

When they began ushering her out and she spotted the agent that had first talked to her on arrival at the other scene, Wallace McGregor. He looked alarmed when she waved so she gave a thumbs-up to let him know everything was fine.I'd like to talk some more with him, it seems like he sticks out a little bit.

E led her to a car where a tired-looking man with fluffy blond hair and a black suit to match the other agents' was standing at the driver's door. A shorter blonde woman with outrageous curves barely contained by her light grey suit held the rear door open for I. Something seems familiar about her, but I don't remember meeting her.

"Thank you,"
she nodded to the other woman. The woman in grey gave a stiff nod and gestured for I to get in. There was a black suit on a hanger hanging from a rod of the passenger seat's neck rest, I settled in behind that and the other woman took the seat next to her. E climbed in on the passenger side and the blond man took the driver's seat. No one said anything as the car pulled away and I was the first to break the silence.

"Uhm, hi, I'm I. I've met E, who are you two?"

"I'm B and my partner back there is Q. She doesn't talk much," the driver responded.

"Alright, well thank you for the spare suit and the ride. Any chance I might be able to bother one of you for a phone as well, I'd like to talk to Director H if I can?" I began putting the suit on, struggling around the seat belt and inertia.

"Ah, that will have to be mine. Q doesn't have one. Don't you or K have one, E?" B answered as Q reached forward to dig in his pocket.

"Nope, we're supposed to be off the grid except for our glasses."

"You'd think we would have our own carrier with all the money the government spends."

"Too much infrastructure to build for that, I'm sure the landlines--" E stopped as the sound of ringing emitted from the phone I had placed on speaker on the center armrest next to him.

"Hello, I, I presume," Hodgeson's voice came from the phone.

"Good evening, director. I had some questions I thought you might be able to answer, is that ok?"

"Mm, very well. What do you want to know?"

"I need to know about a prisoner named 'Hurricane' and I need to know in a hurry," she waited while he thought.

"I will assume you aren't speaking of some common prisoner, in which case I know most of what there is to know, but I have to ask what this has to do with your current assignment, Agent I."

"The case 50 that abducted me knows about him and is looking for him, he claims it is important and has to do with the worm holes that are appearing all over."

"Interesting, I assume there is no one able to overhear us that we might not want to?" The director asked sounding somewhat annoyed.

"No, sir, we are in my vehicle en route to your location," B answered.

"Agent I, I will ask that you endeavor not to place me on speakerphone again. Correct yourself."

B and E looked surprised and insulted to hear the command. Q didn't seem to notice it.

"Sorry, sir, I assumed we were all on the same team here. Allow me a moment to struggle into my replacement clothes while seated in a moving vehicle."

"Moment granted." Amusement crept back into his tone.

"How gracious," she mumbled as she fumbled her new coat.

"There, you're off speaker."

"Excellent, before I say this I want you to know I am looking forward to seeing your work in action, but you are not the most important thing happening at the agency at the moment and you will treat me with the respect I am owed as your senior and your boss, and it is gracious of me to grant you my time.

"Now then, Hurricane is the name of a captured alien whose technology is being studied and reverse-engineered for various purposes by the US. What does this have to do with the holes?"


"They are caused by a parasite apparently capable of tunneling in space-time, but this 'Hurricane' and his race fought them before and created a weapon capable of destroying them."

"That matches what we have learned by interrogating him, anything else?"

"...Of course we already knew all that. Well, the case 50 needs to find Hurricane's ship to get the weapon and stop the parasites before they destroy the planet."

"Mm, how unfortunate. It seems Hurricane refuses to tell anyone where his ship is. We can petition for you to visit and speak with him, but that may take a long time."

"Time we probably don't have, isn't there a way to skip the petition? We can't pull rank or critical-saving-the-world-measures on whoever needs to hear the petitions?"

"We can directly contact the man in charge, but he is a stubborn dinosaur and unlikely to care."

"He won't care if the world is destroyed?"

"Stubborn dinosaur, it'd feed his ego to be right about "the alien threat" or something."

"Why would someone with that attitude be working with an alien at all?"

"Way too much experience and know-how in the area, I'm afraid. Something to the tune of ten decades of first-hand knowledge."

"He's 100 years old and still working? What the hell is the retirement plan like here?"

"One-hundred and...twenty-one, and he chose to keep on the project, but he isn't directly working for our organization, he is technically a contractor at this point, but he was Army for the first 40-ish years. Our retirement plan is quite generous, actually."

"Fine, I'll talk to Methuselah to speed this up."

"I'll make the arrangements for that. We should be ready by the time you get to the conference room. Anything else?"

"That will be all for now, sir. Thank you."

"Make sure you are presentable by then." Director H hung up at that.

E was staring open-mouthed at I as she returned the phone.

"Did you say these holes are going to destroy the planet and that guy who abducted you might be able to stop them?"

"Pretty much, yeah. But apparently the directors don't want everyone knowing that for whatever reason."

"K, capture the target, anything else just became unacceptable," E spoke into his earpiece and carried half a conversation.

"I don't care, he might be able to prevent a level 11... Yes... 11, planetary destruction... NO! You do NOT need a bigger gun... Out."

"Here's your coat by the way." He took it back without comment, folding it rather than putting it back on in the car.

"So, B, Q, I can't help but wonder at what you do for our agency."

"Hm hm, you are certainly you, I. My role is public relations and cover up, I'm the boogeyman suit who no one remembers talking to. If all goes well I'll have the news outlets begin reporting our case 50 here as military research gone wrong by morning. The holes will be trickier, but there are enough terrorist groups that can be blamed for the global phenomenon," he took a quick look at her.

"You are angry, it was someone like me who kept you from the truth at some point, maybe we even managed to lead you to a false conclusion at some point given that you used to be a journalist. Be angry; I was. You will see why we have to do it if you stick around for even a month."

"Why were you angry? Weren't you just recruited for your skill at that kind of thing?" She glanced at Q, maybe I have met her when she was helping cover something up, spooky.

"Partially, I'm sure; but a core prerequisite for joining our band is an encounter with something beyond our world. I spent a long time looking for answers, my predecessor took pity on me, I think. But now? I'm here to help keep someone else from going through what I did."

"Someone like me? Who spent years being told they were wrong and that what they knew for fact was a fantasy caused by a concussion they never had? Who went--"

"Yes! A lot of us had similar circumstances, but for each person like you or me there are thousands who are spared that with my work," B had cut her off and the tension was palpable.

"Sorry, it isn't your fault that happened. I just don't like the deception inherent to your work. I guess I'm still thinking too much like a journalist."

"That's...fine. It's not like I don't understand. I hope you can look past my deceptions while we work together, you'll likely be speaking with me a lot after all."

"Heh, only if you can overlook my aggressive stance on the truth."

"That sounds like a deal to me," B smiled into the rear view mirror.

"What kind of deal with the devil does it take to get those kind of people skills?" E turned to look at both of them.

B and I just laughed and E joined in a moment later. Q continued her statue impression.

The three were joking like old friends by the time the car was parked and they parted ways to different parts of the headquarters.

I found her way to the conference room with a bit of help from the agents still around at this point in the night. Director H was waiting and there were two other men with him. He waved her over to him and pointed at the open seat on his left. She took the offered seat and listened to the youngest of the men as he spoke to the phone on the desk in the middle of them.

"The agent has just joined us, General Masters; would you like to hear it from them?"

"Yes, I think that would be better than hearing it third-hand from a glorified secretary. So let's hear it, son. Why do ya need to know about Project Hurricane, mmn?" the voice was high pitched for a man with a warble that made it sound like there was something stuck in his throat.

"Well, sir, I--"

"Jesus H. Christ, boy! Ya better grab yer stones and speak up. I'm an old man, ya gotta project!" his voice having no problems carrying through the entire room as he interrupted. I began again, louder this time.

"Sir, I spoke with a man who came from the future and he--"

"Deeerectors! Hwhat in the hell is a woman doing at this meeting? Or did you start recruiting little boys for your alien-lovers club?"

"Sir, this woman is the agent who--" Hodgeson looked to Agent I and rolled his eyes as the general interrupted him.

"Fer the love of Christ, man! First ya start recruiting the damn aliens to do yer work fer ya and now ya've got women too? What's society come to? Do ya have any dogs workin' fer ya? I swear..."

"No, sir, the police and army have the dogs working for them. As I was saying, this woman is the agent who spoke to the man in question after locating him herself after just a few hours, to the embarrassment of multiple other government and military agencies," he smirked at that last bit.

"Oh, we got a smart one then? Go on, cupcake."

"Sir, the man I spoke with came from the future with the help of an alien named 'Hurricane' who he believes had crashed his ship and is captive in our time. He says that the ship has a weapon capable of destroying the aliens that are opening the holes around the world. According to the man the holes will either expand or begin opening nearer to eachother, to the point of destroying entire cities if they aren't stopped."

"Mmn, it sounds like you've already read the early files from our project. The time travel is new though, a nice twist on the story I hadn't heard yet."

"I can assure you that she hasn't read the files yet, they remain locked as per your standards. She hasn't had time to read them yet anyways, she's only been an agent for 5 hours."

"5 hours and your "agent" has already managed to locate and interrogate an internationally wanted terrorist? Well, give her a damn medal then! Why stop there, give her a crown and scepter too, then she can be the ruler of Crazy Town with her stories of time travel and benevolent aliens."

"With all due respect, sir, the device the man has is quite similar to something Hurricane posses according to your own testimony in the files. It isn't too far-fetched to think--"

"Fine! Let 'er read 'em. It'll be on your head when every Stacy and Nancy is chatting about the details over tea. I want it noted that I personally disagree with this decision."

"Very well, sir. There is one more thing though."

"Hwhat more could you possibly want?"

"The man is demanding that Hurricane be released in order to cooperate with us."

"Not possible, he's dead." The speaker clattered as the retired general hung up.

"Hmm, that's a problem. Well, I suppose I'll take you to the files. Come along, I," Director H spun the chair as he stood taking several steps before his subordinate stood.

"Right. Sorry, gentlemen, introductions will have to wait until next time," I called back to the others as she jogged to catch H.

"Hmm, I like her," this from the younger of the two. The elder grunted disapprovingly. The younger kept talking but Ashley couldn't hear him well enough anymore.

"Are we really going to leave it at that? I get to read some files to maybe give that guy some info, but the things he really needs we can't help him with? Like, how did we catch Hurricane without knowing where his ship is?" She fell in stride with him a pace behind as she asked.

"Not until you have a stronger argument than 'someone told me this, so it has to be true.' As for the ship there are redacted bits in our copy of the files, see if you can't make sense of those parts or something. I'm sure something in there is relevant."

"He's a time traveler with tech clearly beyond our own to prove as much, how is that not argument enough?"

"Because while that tech is beyond Earth's tech it isn't the best out there that even I know of, and even if it matches the stuff in Project Hurricane that has technically been on the planet for 70 years and is being actively reverse-engineered, so at best that's a wash. Just read up and see if you can find anything for now, okay?"

"Alright, but I want to say that I think this isn't the best use of our time."

"Nothing is the best use of time because that isn't how time works. Now clam up and start thinking about what you can look for in these files."

"Yes, sir," Agent I sagged in defeat. They continued walking for a few minutes in silence, both thinking about the tasks ahead, until H broke the silence near a guarded door.

"Through here, the files are all physical per General Masters's orders so be delicate with them. You'll be inside a Faraday cage, so no signals in or out. You are not permitted to take the files out, take pictures or video of them or otherwise copy them into physical or digital media; you must rely solely on your memory for this. I know you have no means of doing anything other than using your noggin, but it is part of the rules that we restate this to anyone entering that archive, per General blah blah blah. Any questions?"

"Only for the files, sir."

"Thatta girl, I'll have your replacement gear sent up and waiting out here for you when they are ready. If you have to go somewhere before then let the guard here know where you are going," he left as he was talking, the guard opened the door wordlessly, only nodding as I walked through and shutting the door as she was fully inside the cramped room.

Boxes with dates lined shelves neatly arranged in rows through the room. The boxes nearest the door were marked 2017 and 2018 and going deeper into the room to look at other shelves showed the dates went all the way back to 1949. I counted 70 shelving units each with 6 shelves holding 4 boxes with 2 empty units in the front. Each box looked like the boxes offices used to store older files or to empty out filing cabinets to move, about a foot tall and wide and maybe a foot and a half deep. Opening one revealed that they were full of folders and paper as she suspected, much heavier than expected though. Sitting around with Jake must have made me weaker than I thought, I'll have to start working out more seriously again.

"Almost seventeen-hundred cases full of files, yup, something is going to be useful in here for sure. How am I supposed to find it though? From the beginning, maybe?"

The boxes for 1949 woke a strange nostalgia as they were reports of the UFO crash in Roswell that Ashley had grown up researching, even finding some more heavily redacted versions of these same documents. But there was too little information not blacked out to be of use. Maybe then... nostalgia on her mind, a stray thought caught on edge of it.

She moved to the boxes for July 1999, hoping to find nothing of note. At the end of the first box a shipping invoice sent a chill through her spine. It had been delayed due to an accident on I-308, received on the 18th instead of the 17th. The second box started off with a report about said accident since it had been the delivery truck itself that was involved. This report stated that an experimental aircraft based on technology engineered through Project Hurricane had malfunctioned above I-308 on July 16th and the on-board EMP bomb detonated, frying a civilian car and destroying the auto-drive on the delivery truck carrying the shipment, causing the vehicles to collide. This report cited another report: USNM-99J2A7-0012.UAAV.4A.

I couldn't stop the tears from flowing at the memory, but the date was wrong, she remembered the accident was on the 17th. Grandpa had been picking them up on Friday to spend the weekend with him and Grandma. She looked back to the invoice for the date, the receiving party dated it 07/18 in sharpie followed by a sloppy signature, but at the bottom was another signature in pen, a supervisor, and next to it a stamp: Monday, 19th July, 1999. Monday the 19th? But Friday was the 17th, that has to be a mistake.

She had a hard time getting to her feet, and she left the boxes open on the floor where she'd been looking through them. She shuffled out of the room to talk to the guard.

"Excuse me, may I check the calendar on your phone?"

Without looking at her or saying anything the man produced a cellphone from his coat pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to her.

"Thank you." She opened the calendar app and scrolled back to July 1999. The 19th had been a Monday, and the 17th was, in fact, a Saturday. She handed the phone back to the guard and fell to her knees. I've had the dates wrong for 19 years? No, everything said the accident happened on the 17th, late at night. We had dinner with Grandpa after dad got home from work just a little early, like every Friday. Then after dinner we piled into Grandpa's car and headed straight there, we were only gone an hour or two when it happened. It definitely happened on Friday. Why would the reports all claim the 17th?

Her heart was pounding harder than it ever did when she ran, her head was getting fuzzy and she was having trouble even staying balanced while sitting on her heels and knees. She felt her stomach turn and bile burned at her already raw throat. She slumped to rest on her elbows and coughed up the bile onto the floor and into her hair that had pooled below her face. She felt her body shudder in sync with the beating of her heart as the strength left her arms and her face crashed to the floor.

*****

She woke up strapped to an upright table, there was a very bright light shining in her eyes blinding her to most of her surroundings. A man stepped in front of the light he was in white scrubs, and he bent nearly in half to inspect her face, he had to be twice her height to do so. He held something in one hand and he grabbed the top of her head with his other hand to hold it in place as he moved the first towards her face. She struggled against the bindings holding her to the table, but it was useless, she was far too weak to break out of them. She jerked her head around wildly and screamed, but it wasn't her scream. Not the defiant scream of a young woman with a sore throat. Instead it was the panicked scream of a young girl, she felt a pain in her nose as whatever the man had been holding failed to yield to her thrashing head. And then she knew where she was. This was the day that was missing in her memories, this is what happened between Grandpa's car turning off and crying into the truck's radio.

Just like that the scene froze, the pain evaporated and the lights dimmed. She saw Willy in front of her, also a kid, as another man in surgical clothes shoved an instrument up his nose. Off to the left she saw a flat table with a sheet draped over a large figure, nobody stood around that one. To the right was a table crowded by 3 men and 2 women, what was visible beyond them was a bloody wreck, Courtney. Beyond that, outside the circle of light was an older man, muscular but wrinkled and pale in a dark suit, clearly not part of the same team as the others in their scrubs. He was watching all this, eyes roving between each of the three until his eyes locked with Ashley's as she struggled and he smiled. He turned and walked beyond the dim illumination he had been in. The scene ended when the man in front of her pressed a needle into her arm.

*****

Agent I woke up again in a familiar bed, her head throbbing, nose stinging, and throat burning. She checked her arm for the needle mark and immediately ripped out the IV that was there. Blinking away the pain and attempting to stand she was shoved back to the bed by her shoulders and couldn't muster the strength to fight back.

"I know you've had quite a night, but you will not hinder your healing as long as you are in my care. Now stay here while I get you some food," M scolded the injured agent.

"What happened?"

"You have been running around for a few days without food or water and without getting actual sleep, despite fainting twice and being knocked out once. If I'd known he was going to be such a slave driver I would have held you for a day, as it stands I am planning on holding you for two days while you get some rest. Here, eat," a tray of cold soft foods was placed on the side table of the bed.

"But, I have to meet with--"

"Nope! You don't have to do anything but rest. Your partner can take on your work for the next few days, you can keep in contact with him once your gear gets here, but you aren't going anywhere, doctor's orders. Eat."

"Yes, ma'am," she relented to M's steely will, slowly eating the porridge from the center of the tray. As she finished the last of that she asked: "Were you able to pull my old files?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. It seems you ran into a top secret project as a kid and they used...an inelegant method to make you forget: an implant up the nasal cavity. Apparently your nose was broken during the procedure and it dislodged the device, which their notes say should have led to a lethal infection in the brain. Obviously they were wrong. By the way, you re-broke your nose when you fainted upstairs, I took the liberty of removing the device and re-straightening your nose again. You'll want to sleep on your back so the gel can finish setting this time."

"Did the old files say who did the procedure?"

"Redacted, unfortunately. I'd like to give them a piece of my mind for the hack job they did. But it wouldn't have been redacted if it was one of ours, so they would have been part of whatever top secret project you ran into, that part was also removed."

"Of course. Thanks, M."

*****

"Absolutely not! She's barely slept 2 hours and she needs time to properly digest and replenish the blood--" M frowned as the other person on the phone cut her off. "No! The last time you ordered someone released--" She waited again. "It's exactly the same, sir. You think something is so dire but you don't send in fresh, well-rested people, opting for the worn and weary--" She paced between the two desks in the room. "I'll be reporting this, sir...Yes...Very well," she sighed as she put the phone down.

"What's going on?" I stretched as she asked.

"You are being flown out to a secure location to meet with a case 50."

"Huh? I was supposed to meet him in a coffee place," she thought back to the meeting she'd set up with her kidnapper.

"The details will be sent to your glasses," M waved a hand towards a pile of gear atop a fresh suit on the next bed over, then she sat hard on her chair and pulled the keyboard to her.

I put on her new glasses, noting that they were shaped differently from the ones she'd had before. Text began to scroll across the lenses, and she read it as she set her new phone up how she wanted it. By the time she was done reading she'd downloaded MushiHime's app again and sent off a message. M handed her a small case filled with pills.

"What's this?"

"Those will keep you from from falling asleep, and these," she handed a similar looking case also filled with pills, "will keep you from completely starving yourself. Make sure you drink plenty of water with each and don't take more than one of each within 4 hours or more than 2 of each within 24 hours."

I grabbed her dirty coat and the fresh suit, thanked M again only to be shooed away. Her new glasses guided her to her quarters.

There was a tiled area just inside the door that connected to a small kitchen, beyond that there was plush beige carpet through the rest of the area. A gift basket with fruits and flowers sat on the kitchen table. A desk with what looked to be her personal computer sat along the wall a bit away from a 3-cushioned couch with a coffee table in front. A nice medium sized TV was mounted on the wall across from the couch. I moved to inspect the computer and her heart skipped a beat as she noticed a very familiar white board leaning against the desk, complete with pictures held in place by tape and magnets, her handwriting underneath and between each picture following a line from one picture to another. Keeping the bottom of the white board from sliding were a pair of boxes that she guessed were full of things from her old apartment back in D.C. Ignoring that for now I checked the doors in here, the one nearest the entry was a closet as expected, the one nearest the kitchen was the bathroom, and the last was a bedroom. The bedroom had a dresser, closet and bed with a door that also led into the bathroom. The bathroom only had a toilet, shower stall and small sink. The whole place was small compared with what she'd grown up with out west but space was much more valuable here on the east coast and this was a pretty good size for over here, bigger than her place in D.C. She took a quick shower and changed into the new suit, the puke had been cleaned off her, but it just wasn't the same as a full shower.

Using the glasses she contacted T to meet him and they decided to meet in the garage. He was waiting near the entrance when she got there instead of near their car like she expected.

"Hey, T. Let's go," she waved at him and started walking in the direction of their car.

"We will not be going in the car, I. Please, follow me," and he began walking in the opposite direction.

"Oh, right, we're flying. Is the pilot already waiting for us?" She jogged over to walk beside him.

"Negative, we will be flying."

"Uhh, you know I've never flown anything before, right?"

"Affirmative, it is my duty to instruct you on any of the essential skills needed to perform your duties, such as the operation of this craft," he stopped and put a hand out in front of him towards the open air. I looked around and couldn't see anything in the area, much less vehicles.

"I don't see anything, and my glasses aren't showing me anything either; what gives?"

"Cloaking, effective under most of the electromagnetic spectrum, particularly on this planet. It is not perfect though. Light shone at it will not be translated to the other side instantly or perfectly," He pulled out a laser pointer and swept the beam across the wall slowly until it disappeared for a moment. When it came back it was larger and higher up on the wall.

"Move about ten feet to your right, then back to where you are." I did so, and the larger spot disappeared from the wall about halfway and appeared on the floor further back, returning to the wall when she was back at her starting position.

"Hmm, so it does bad with lights directed at it, but omnidirectional light isn't a problem?"

"Correct, if we found a sensor and shone this directly into it it would create a large area of red light where there should not be one. Do you understand the limits of this kind of cloaking?"

"Yeah, it isn't effective in visually diverse areas or unusual light conditions. But in open areas or bland closed areas it is very effective."

"Excellent, time to begin flight training since you understand the conditions for a proper landing zone."

"Oooh-kay? I really have to learn to fly an invisible jet?"

"Affirmative, at minimum one agent per team must know how to operate any equipment they may use. As designation I you can potentially need to use almost any equipment and must learn at least half of that list. It would be preferable to learn them all as you never know who you will be partnered with."

"Wait, the teams can be changed around?"

"Yes, but more importantly several designations have no set partners, such as I or T."

"Aww, I hope you stick around a while, you're really reliable."

"My job is to train you for fieldwork. I do not think it will take long as you are naturally quick to learn. Let us begin here," T shifted the hand he'd been holding in the air and and a darkened doorway appeared next to him. He waved her in then followed after her.

*****

"An excellent landing, the entire craft is within the central pad," T tossed some cones around the craft.

"Did we really just go from New York to Nevada in 30 minutes? Why haven't we shared this technology with the public, or the military?"

"Mr. Perkins? Ms. Jones?" A young man in an airman's utility uniform stood in the gloom of the early morning saluting, though it was still late night in this time zone.

"At ease, Senior Airman. We are here to speak with Mr. Masters," Denise returned his salute so he could cut. "Are you here to escort us?"

"Yes, ma'am. Please, follow me."

"Jones, focus," Perkins whispered. She realized she had been gawking at the base she'd heard rumors about her whole life: Edwards Air Force Base, better known as Area 51. It looked pretty normal for a military base, they'd even passed over the token movie theater.

"Right, thanks."

The airman led them to a smaller office building past several hangars housing aircraft that Denise couldn't identify. Inside the office an older man in the "office-wear" uniform took their names and badge numbers into a logbook before letting them pass to an elevator. The three buttons inside the elevator were unlabeled and there was a card reader on one side of the panel that their escort slid a blue card into before hitting the middle button.

It didn't feel like the elevator had moved but after 15 or so seconds the doors slid open not to the office, but to a short metal hallway with 4 heavily armed and armored guards training a set of rifles and a set of shotguns towards the elevator. Their young escort checked his watch and gave a password to the guards, who pointed the weapons at the floor as they moved to the sides of the hall, revealing a heavy looking shutter style door.

The airman moved towards it and waved a green card behind one of the guards. Mechanisms kicked to life immediately and to door began to raise, it took a good ten seconds before the bottom of the door raised out of the groove that helped lock it into place. But it only took a few more seconds for the door to lock into place above them and a platform to fold out over the two foot gap into the next room.

"Rodgers! I'll take 'em here. Go to the waiting room, the fat one will come get you when I'm done," a familiarly warbled voice called out from ahead of them. The source was a man with a square head and an immaculate white flat-top with a physique most gym-rats would be envious of: General Edward Masters, he seemed untouched by the last 19 years. The frown he wore would frighten a bear into submission. Their escort practically disappeared as he ran for a nearby door.

"I'd say I was sorry you've wasted yer time, cupcake, but I couldn't care less. The alien you want died a few years back when he tried to escape, dropped a nuke on 'im and that was that."

"Then what has the project here been working on for the past few years? You are churning out the same number of files and reports as you have been since '49, how could you do that without something to study?"

"Project is winding down, maybe 2 more years of breakthroughs before we're done here. Just squeezing hwhat we can out of past observations."

"Doesn't match a report from May of 2017, it had a pretty detailed account of an escape attempt," Jones bluffed with a straight face.

Masters's eyes narrowed, "Don't patronize me, girl, there wasn't an escape attempt last year because he was already blown to bits. Or do you want to go check our records here to prove me wrong?"

"Unless you're afraid that I'm right there wouldn't be a reason not to, would there?"

"No, I suppose not. Let's go prove how much of a waste of time you are, cupcake."

A short walk into another guarded room showed them a library of boxes as before, dated and ordered the same. Jones rushed over to the most recent box and looked through the past few days and before Masters could stop her she found what she actually wanted.

"Boom, counter-evidence," she held a set of photo printouts.

"Wrong box, you're holding security photos of a test helicopter during the earthquakes that happened a few days ago."

"Not according to the attached report, quote: 'Subject Hurricane was still dormant when the holes opened in nearby'--" she saw stars and felt like she was floating for a moment before she hit the ground hard.

Masters stood over her as he spoke with venom in his voice, hand still clenched from the backhand he delivered, "Get out of my base."

"You really don't want to save the world, why? Why hold the only hope we have hostage?" Perkins helped haul her to her feet.

"I already saved the world 3 times in wars and more after, girl. If we need to be saved let us figure it out like the other times, we don't need an alien's help."

She paused with her hand rubbing the sore cheek, "What? If we have a chance then we should--"

"Shut up. I won't be lectured by a child who hasn't seen what they would do if given a chance. They're dangerous and this one'll stay locked up as long as I draw breath."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I really hope that isn't for much longer. For all our sake."

"Fatty, go get Rodgers, take your time."

Perkins looked to Jones and she nodded her assent. He left at a quick pace.

"What do you gain from--"

"Nothing. I get nothing. I could have retired a lifetime ago and still been fine, doing whatever I wanted. But that isn't God's plan for me, no. He has told me that we must struggle and succeed of our own merit, that the Devil will tempt us with easy solutions; but we cannot take them for they are cursed! If we fall to temptation we are doomed to become slaves to it. Will is part of the free will we were gifted and it allows us to make the hard choices that we sometimes must, choices like not using the magic bullet handed to us on a silver platter."

"Doesn't it follow that sometimes we must also make the easy choice too? Conversely, wouldn't what appears to be the easy choice actually be the hard choice? Either way sometimes the easy choice is the right choice. Just work with us here, we'll do what we can to help you get him back in captivity after we've stopped the threat."

"No. It wants to use a weapon capable of targeting an entire species based on their DNA; who's to say it isn't going to also use that against us if we let it go? Too dangerous."

"That's it? We already have those. We'll just need a sample of the worms then. Thanks, I'll see if we can't get to work on that."

"So long as it stays in human hands."

"Yeah, yeah. We'll make sure only the pure-blooded touch it, grand wizard," the room spun wildly and Jones fell to her hands and knees, her glasses falling to the floor along with her phone. "Yeah, I deserved that one. Ouch, you really don't hold back do you?" She glared up at him. He just stared at her looking puzzled for a moment.

"Oh, don't tell me that caused a heart-attack or something, I know you're old but--"

"Your eyes..."

"Gorgeous aren't they?" her flat tone dripped with sarcasm.

"You're a Nilpine," His voice had gone soft, like he was out of breath.

"I suppose I haven't met many other people with nearly orange eyes, but that doesn't mean I belong to a particular group, who are they to you, anyways?" she stood back up after grabbing her effects.

"Apparently, some of my biggest mistakes. Let's just hope the boy doesn't manage to come back to haunt me too," he found his normal voice again by the end.

"Yeah, killing 2 people and botching the cover-up for one of the survivors is pretty bad."

"You shouldn't remember that, but you admit to being there. So you are the big sister?"

"The thing in my nose was removed."

"Mmn," he grunted acknowledgment. Both stared at the other thinking over what they had just learned until Perkins returned with Rodgers and the three left for the surface. T and I returned to their ship and flew back to their base as I shared what she learned and told T her plan.

"I will speak to M and R."

"Alright, I'll talk to D, H and K then. Only about 18 hours until we need it all ready, do you think we can do it?"

"Time will tell, but I have confidence in the people we have access to."
 
Robin opened her eyes, as much good as it did her, and surveyed her surroundings. The sound of car alarms rang out in the distance, but everything around her was pitch black save for a single light shining toward a piece of rubble. Robin slowly made her way toward it, stumbling over loose debris here and there until she reached her destination. The light was coming from a Maglite, which she bent down to pick up, meeting resistance as she did so. She pulled harder and stumbled a bit as it broke free, but she managed to keep her balance. She pointed the flashlight at the ground where she found it and gasped in surprise. A policeman, or rather the top half of one, was sticking out from under a pile of debris. Robin fought back nausea as she looked closer at the gruesome sight before her. Normally this isn't the sort of thing Robin would look at for a prolonged amount of time, but something about it was unnerving to Robin, aside from the obvious. The officer was wearing a Kevlar vest that read "DPD", and was clutching a Riot Shotgun in his other hand. In front of him was a box of shells, spilled out onto the ground. This gave her an uneasy feeling, and she quickly pried the Shotgun out of his hands and checked to see if it was loaded, which it wasn't. As she further examined this new weapon she noticed a small LED light attached to the side of of the barrel, and switched it on to see if it still worked, which it didn't. Robin cursed to herself as she pointed the flashlight back to the cop to check what else he had.

"You know," Robin said to herself, as she stripped him of his empty sidearm holster and Kevlar vest. "This is pretty fucked up, and normally I wouldn't be looting your corpse, but shit's been bad today and you looked like you needed these"

After she wrestled those things free she aimed the light towards the Box of shells and quickly gathered them, loading the shotgun as she did. It's capacity was 8, which left 16 backup rounds, which she hoped she wouldn't need. She then decided to get a better idea of her surroundings, shining the light up the pile of debris until it passed the top and continued into the abyss of endless dark above, and then brought it over the surrounding debris. The rubble was stacked almost 10 ft high in some areas and forming a complete circle around them and the clearing they were in. They. THEY!

"DAMIAN!" Robin shouted, her voice echoing all around as she frantically shone the light around in search of him.

Eventually her light passed over a white lump in the distance and she ran over to it, nearly tumbling over as she dropped to its side. It was Damian, he wasn't moving, and he was still bleeding from where the door fragments were. As she further inspected him she also noticed blood dripping from some new places, namely his nose, ears, and even more unnerving, his eyes. She she shook him in a panic, and started shouting at him once more.

"Damian...come ON!" she pleaded, her voice wavering in fear, "wake up...please...I NEED you to wake up..."

She brought the side of her head down to his chest to listen for his heartbeat. She tried to calm herself and think of what her mother would do in this situation. She steadied her breathing and listened for what felt like an eternity, when she finally heard it. His heartbeat was there, but it was slower than normal, or rather, she thought it was. She sighed in relief and sat back on her feet for a second to steady herself. She then took the flashlight and decided to look through the mysterious duffel bag that Damian grabbed as they were fleeing. It was full of an assortment of things but the most important, at least at the moment, was medical supplies. She took some out and began to strip off Damian's hoodie and shirt, taking great care not to further damage the wound. She then did some amateur work at applying first-aid, lucky for her the "shrapnel" wasn't too deep. She removed it with as much precision as her shaky, untrained hands would allow, and then cleaned and disinfected the damaged area. She then wrapped it in gauze and did her best to redress him without fucking up her hard work, and as an added courtesy, cleaned the blood off of his face. She then carefully dragged him over to one of the more stable sides of the debris wall, and used some of the salvageable rubble to construct a crude little hut for them to take refuge under. It wasn't anything fancy, just a couple of pillars of stacked stone/brick with a mostly intact wooden door stacked on top as a "roof", and a less in tact wooden table as a "front door". She then dug through the duffel bag once more, pulling out a battery powered heated blanket, a small crank powered lantern, a bottle of water, and some beef jerky. She then dug through the assortment of batteries in the duffel bag to find some for the blanket, and decided to see if any would fit the flashlight on the shotgun. She managed to find the correct type and wasted no time in replacing the old batteries, pushing the power button afterwards to test it. The small LED light sprang to life with surprising vigor, and Robin sighed in relief, as some small thing finally went right. She then switched it off, followed by the Maglite and turned on the small lantern, cranking it to brighten her surroundings. She stayed sat up for some time, eating the beef jerky, drinking some water, and occasionally cranking the lantern to re-illuminate her dark world. After she was finished eating she lay down next to Damian, covering herself with the heated blanket for warmth. As she lay on her back next to Damian she found herself deep in thought. She had a lot of questions and the very few answers she did have were just more questions, so she decided to just stop thinking for now and try to sleep. She felt unusually uneasy, which she chalked up to the circumstances, so she kept her right hand on the shotgun beside her. Her left hand however, she slowly reached out with and interlocked her fingers with Damian's unconscious hand. She felt an odd tingle as she did so, and her feelings of unease began to dissipate.

"It's gonna be okay Jester" she said softly, using her longstanding nickname for him, "It's all gonna be okay..."

And with that, she slowly drifted off to sleep.
 
The two coppers entered the dressing room quietly and Clif couldn't help but look back as Cora closed the door, catching a glimpse of the blonde little lady before the door closed and definitely not liking seeing the smug look on her face before the door closed.

One look around this place and Clif could tell, while Cora did her best to make the room look nice, it was just another one way of Jamie torturing poor Cora: The room had cracked, stained walls, and the roof looked horrible as well. The young Fuzz suspected that, had this room not been underground, it would probably be extremely leaky as well. It made him sad to be in the singers room, ultimately, because he knew she deserved better.

In the end, Clif decided to say nothing, however, as he would have to bide his time... For now.

"Uhm, so…" Clif heard himself ramble as the three of them got situated in her dressing room.

"I didn’t get a good look at them. It was very dark and in the very back of the Club, not even inside…" Cora quickly began to sing like a canary for them, Jamie's harsh words doing a stellar job at increasing her cooperation, "All I know for sure is that there were SEVERAL people there… They told you I fainted soon after, right? I’m surprised they didn’t find me and kill me afterwards…"

Clif cocks his head in confusion and almost horror.

"S-several people?! You mean there was more than ONE killer?!" The young Fuzz heard himself say.

"….I’m afraid so," The singer nodded, closing her eyes while lightly hugging herself.

"My God… This was bad enough with ONE of them in Shamrock… Now to find out there are SEVERAL?! …Do you think you could recall exactly how many? What they looked it? Any distinguishing features at all? Any of their faces? If they were all men or all women or how much of them were men or women?" Tripp asked her, clearly disturbed by this news himself.

"Uhm... F-Five, I think…? Maybe six? I'm so sorry... I only saw their silhouettes and passed out soon afterwards... I can't remember anything special about them at all. Any of them," Cora genuinely was trying to remember, but it was clear she wasn't entirely sure herself.

"This is just fantastic…" Clif sighed in exasperation.

"I-I’m sorry… I know I’m not much help at all…" Cora muttered and fidgeted nervously, hanging her head bashfully and rubbing her arm with the opposing arms hand.

Clif took sympathy on the poor woman, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, surprising the singer as she flinched at his touch. It almost reminded Clif of an abused dog who hadn't really known love or a gentle hand finally getting tenderly petted or something.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just glad you didn't get hurt," Clif told her while smiling.

"How… how can you possibly be glad I didn’t get hurt when you barely just met me…?" Cora asked, wide-eyed and clearly taken completely off guard by his concern.

Clif gives her a blank stare in return for a moment, trying to find the right words to say to her.

"I just am, I guess! I know we just met and all, but…I was hoping we could be friends…?" Clif sheepishly asked, smiling just as awkwardly, and extending his hand out (normally this time) while adding, "My name is Clif. Clifton Brownside, but please just call me Clif."

He smiled at her as brightly as he could, though it almost faded prematurely when her reaction was extreme uncertainty and definitely eyeing him up as if she was examining a rattlesnake possibly about to bite her. It made him sad because he knew Cora treated all men this way, not just him.

"I..." The singer looked away and bit her lip a tad, then finally formally introduced herself, "Around here they call me 'Red Rapunzel', but my name is Cora. Cora Grimm."

She took his hand gently and shook it, gasping a bit and almost shaking as Clif tenderly squeezed her hand in his while smiling again at her. She looked back at him lost and confused.

"I... I think I prefer Cora. It's a pretty name and really suits you..." Clif honestly stated, adding with a bit of an embarrassed face, "And you don't have to call me 'Officer' or anything, either. Clif is just fine."

"...Alright... Clif... I-I'll keep that in mind," Cora nodded after a few moments, finally smiling herself, though not making eye contact with him and her face looked a bit flushed for a moment.

Clif also looked away bashfully, both of them losing track of the amount of time their handshake should actually last and it wasn't until Tripp cleared his throat that the two even realized what was happening. They then both retracted their hands as quickly as possible.

Clif felt his face red hot when he looked over at Tripp and saw his sly, smug expression with a smirk and raised eyebrows.

He looked over to Cora and the singer, upon making eye contact with him, also began to clear her throat.

"...Uhm... So.. Why does your Boss hate Cops? Did we threaten to shut down his club or something?" The young brown-haired man heard himself ask the newly appointed Madonna of his heart, clearly this was just his way of trying to elongate their stay with her since now .

"Something like that… I think he hates anyone who can oppose his authority over City than he does, or can truthfully claim that, anyway…! It's so silly because obviously no one can," The radiant red-haired woman heartily chuckled back while slightly covering her mouth, nearly making Clif float his heart soared so high getting to see her smile. He didn't even realize it but he also joined in chuckling a moment.

Yeah, he was smitten. No doubt about it.

"Are... Are you scared of Jamie...?" He asked, foolishly feeling comfortable asking such a question, and instantly regretted it as soon as he did when he saw her smile fade away into a look first of sadness and then a frown that was almost a glare.

"… No. I guess since I’m not of much use to you aside from telling you the number of killers we’re DONE with the questioning, right?" She responded curtly, making Clif's heart sink and feel like he was back at square one.

"Dang it, I flew too close to the Sun…" The deflated and defeated Officer thought to himself as he hung his head and made his way towards the door at her gesture to leave.

Clif sadly marched out of the room with Tripp not following far behind.


While walking his way to the Entrance lounge, about to leave the Club, He crosses paths with Jamie, who gives him a quick smile and waves and starts heading towards the stage, and something told Clif that troublesome little lady was heading towards Cora's dressing room.

"Clif?" Tripp asked as he headed back right where they came from.

"Shhh, stay quiet," Clif whispered while notioning for Tripp to follow him.

Despite Clif’s better judgement, they silently followed Jamie, and almost hugged the walls by the door and only entrance to Red Rapunzels dressing room so they could hear their conversation.

"So, WHAT did you tell him?" He heard the rotten Club owners daughter practically scowl this question at Cora. Clif saw this coming a mile away, he knew that sweet little lady routine was just an act.

Clif can’t help but frown as Jamie spoke to Cora so threateningly.

"I told him the truth: I saw a few shadows that night, not just one, so he might not be looking for ONE serial Killer, but SEVERAL," Cora replied, matter-of-fact-ly.

"Hmph. I suppose you are AT LEAST good FOR THAT," Jamie scoffed.

Clif’s hand curled into a fist in anger… Somehow he should have figured there was a demon hiding beneath such angelic clothing.

"Funny, that’s not what my Client was saying about me last night. Nor the 50 million I earned Club Envy then, either," Cora grumbled back bitterly, but quietly and sheepishly enough not for Jamie to consider as defiance.

"Yes, well, luckily you’re TRAMP ENOUGH to be making a living off the stupidity of the opposite gender. You should be THANKFUL, most girls aren’t so lucky," Jamie condescended the poor singer, making Clif angrier.

"…I need to take this weekend off. Misty’s having a graduation ceremony and I want to be there," He heard Cora respond.

Clif can’t help but wonder who this “Misty” is and what their relation is to Cora. He wants to know everything about Cora, as a matter of fact.

"Not a chance, Grimm. You’re our most valuable bidders choice, and there’s no chance I’ll let the Patrons miss out on a PRIZE like you," The awful woman in white and green denied her request.

Clif is trying not to slam his fist against the wall, enraged how Jamie is referring to Cora not like a person but an item.

"Jamie. I don’t ask for much from you… in fact, I barely ask for anything at all, LET ME GO TO MY LITTLE SISTERS GRADUATION CEREMONY," Cora pleaded to obviously deaf ears.

"Oh my GOD, Grimm, She’s ‘graduating’ from 3rd grade to 4th grade, not EXACTLY a freaking MILESTONE IN HER CHILDHOOD, you know," Jamie completely disregarded her rather rudely.

"I don’t care, I want to go," Cora insisted, though from her tone she already sounded defeated.

"Well TOUGH LUCK, you’re being auctioned off that Friday and that’s final. Get that little snot-nosed BRAT who you have baby-sit her to go instead."

"I’ve already asked Rosie for enough of her time already, and this is something I have to and SHOULD go to. I’m going and you’re not stopping me,"
The young Fuzz had heard his dame say a bit defiantly.

Clif hears a slap and then a loud thud as something hits the ground. Clif flinches at the sudden sounds and hopes his gasp wasn’t heard from the other side of the door.

"My my… You’re rather BOLD today, aren’t you?" Clif heard Jamie ask Cora so condescendingly it physically made him sick to his stomach.

Clif is gritting his teeth so hard it’s almost painful for him.

"Well, we can fix that: Not only can you NOT have the weekend off, but you’re being auctioned off weekdays as well. Know your place. Know that groveling on the ground pathetically is just PERFECT for you," Said a voice so cold it almost didn't sound like Jamie. Clif knew it was, though.

Clif is about to charge in when a hand on his shoulder pulls him away. It’s Jessie, a bit frustrated with him for spying on Cora.

"Are ya dang crazy?! Jamie’d have yer head on a silvah platt’r if’n she found out ya were spyin’!" The whispering woman with the western accent from earlier, Jessie, starts dragging Clif and Tripp away and toward the entrance.


"You’re just going to let Jamie treat her like that?! What kind of friend are you?!" Clif scolded Jessie once they had reached a safer place to talk out loud.

Jessie stops now that they were far enough, and spins around to face the young Fuzz, a clear frown upon her face.

"Listen, YA JERK, ‘fore ya go ‘round accusin’ others Ah reckon Ah sure as sugar didn’ see YERSELF burst into that there door, eithah! Only reason she even LET ya inside was ‘cause Cora hates Cops ‘bout as much as ‘er Father does!" The waitress huffed at his accusation.

Clif’s heart sinks upon hearing Jessie’s confession.

"Cora…Cora hates Cops….?" He blurted-ly asked.

"‘Er Parents were killed in an accident after she graduated High School. When th’ Cops tol’ ‘er ‘bout ‘er folks a young ‘un ‘o theirs had th’ bright ideer t’lay th’ moves on ‘er while she was grievin’ er loss!" Jessie indignantly answered Clif's question.

Clif’s almost doesn’t believe what he is hearing.

"What… what happened…to her parents?" He asked as his heart sank with Jessie's every word.

Jessie sighs heavily and waves her hand dismissively towards him as a sign to tell him to go away.

"Ain’t my secret nor story to tell… Ah shouldn’t ‘a even told ya ‘bout ‘er folks in th’ first place. Now go on an’ git, Slick!" The red-headed waitress denied answering him while dismissing him with her hands.

Clif tries to plead Jessie with puppy dog eyes for more details on his new crush but Jessie avoids eye-contact while she shoves him out the doors of Club Envy.

Clif hangs his head again and sighs as the door slams shut loudly behind him, then walks to his car to head back to the station.
 
[class=program]position: relative;width:calc(50%);min-width: 340px;max-width:540px;background:black; background-size:cover;color:grey;border:4px #cccccc solid;padding:4px;box-sizing:border-box[/class] [class=title]background:#cccccc;background-size:cover;color:black;[/class] [class=start]cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=oops][/class] [class=next]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=hide]display:none;[/class] [class=argue][/class] [class=on]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=sleep][/class] [class=wake]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=conf][/class] [class=realize]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=excite][/class] [class=speak]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=talk][/class] [class=decide]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [class=answer][/class] [class=reset]color:blue;cursor:pointer;[/class] [script class=start on=click] removeClass hide oops removeClass hide next [/script] [script class=next on=click] addClass hide program addClass hide title addClass hide start addClass hide oops addClass hide next removeClass hide argue removeClass hide on [/script] [script class=on on=click] addClass hide argue addClass hide on removeClass hide sleep removeClass hide wake [/script] [script class=wake on=click] addClass hide sleep addClass hide wake removeClass hide conf removeClass hide realize [/script] [script class=realize on=click] addClass hide conf addClass hide realize removeClass hide excite removeClass hide speak [/script] [script class=speak on=click] addClass hide excite addClass hide speak removeClass hide talk removeClass hide decide [/script] [script class=decide on=click] addClass hide talk addClass hide decide removeClass hide answer removeClass hide reset [/script] [script class=reset on=click] addClass hide answer addClass hide reset removeClass hide program removeClass hide title removeClass hide start [/script]
[div class=program][div class=title]Neural Pathways Reader and Diagnostics Tool v1.0[/div]External hardware detected...
Hard-drive [E:\] selected, checking available storage...
27.9PB available of needed 2PB...
Overflow data dump drive [I:\] selected...
Running test scan...
Test scan within normal parameters for condition (Empty)...
Final checklist...
External hardware (Scan Helmet Prototype...Pass
Storage space [E:\]...Pass
Overflow drive present...Pass
Test scan results...Pass
Checklist...Pass

Ready to begin scan...
[div class=start]>>Start[/div]

[/div][div class="oops hide"]The lights on the helmet turn on and cycle a few times before stopping. Looks like the auto-cancel feature works when it doesn't detect any activity. Neat, but I should stop messing around.

[/div][div class=next]>>Everything seems to be in order time to explain[/div][div class="argue hide"]"Alright, I'm getting ready to start the first test, there is going to be a progress bar on the screen there, I anticipate it'll take 4 to 8 hours. It should stop the process once it is done on its own, but just in case it doesn't and I don't respond for a few minutes after it hits 100% hit the "Shut down" button and wait for the lights on the helmet to turn off before taking it off. Any questions?"

"Do you really need to test it on yourself?"

"Yep, there is no way I'd have approval for human testing at this stage so using myself gets around it by having 100% understanding and permission from a human subject. And I need to be able to test the memories and skills of the software once it is made, and I don't know anyone better than I know me. Besides, I couldn't live with myself if this failed and left someone else in a coma or paralyzed or something."

"But it's fine if those happen to you?"

"Better me than anyone else."

Head grunted in dissatisfaction at the answer, "Mmph. What are the the chances something like that happens?"

"I don't think there is a way to know with how many variables and--"

"If you had to give it odds what would they be?"

"...40% that it works with minor side effects like memory loss or degraded motor skill, 35% that it works with major issues like paralysis or amnesia, 10% that it works but puts the subject in a coma or a grave, 15% success with no side effects or complications."

"No chance of failure at all?"

"Those are the odds if it works, if it doesn't work there is about a 80% chance of nothing happening but me taking a nap in a weird helmet, 10% chance of minor side effects, 7% chance of major side effects and 3% for a coma or death."

"Why are there two different sets of odds?"

"The outcome is binary: zero or one. If I'm wrong in my underlying theory then there is a good chance that nothing I have here will actually do anything at all, a zero. If I'm right in theory then I will get some result, with or without additional results, a one. Basically fifty-fifty."

"Not very good odds if you ask me."

"47.5% of no side effects for an experimental medical procedure? 25% of minor side effects that can be overcome or worked around, 21% bad side effects, and 6.5% of slipping away. Those are about the best odds you can ask for. Talk to anyone looking into new medicine and they would take those over anything else."

"Even though half of any of those results are a failed treatment?"

"Yes! Medicine is great right now, but it is still far from perfect."

Head glared at the student with a frown plastered to his face as the student glared right back with fire in their eyes.

"Nothing I say will stop you, will it?"

"I highly doubt it."

"Your father wouldn't want you to do this."

"Oh..." the student looked away and clutched at their chest as if physically wounded at that. "No, dad would want me to finish this, hackers don't quit because something is risky."

"Bahaha! Of course he'd teach that to his kid. Crazy old man. So you're really going through with it?"

"Mhm."

"Fine. If it goes well enough that you can still work with us then you're still on the team, kid. If not I'll make sure we get you set up in a cozy place, sound fair?"

"Yeah, I can agree with that."

"Good, then don't die; we've already lost one teammate this week."

"I'll try not to. Thanks. So, any questions about it?"

"I don't think so, you've got a pretty simple set up there. I'll have Lung in here to keep watch and keep the kids out while Fin distracts them with other stuff."

"Okay, I guess I'll get it started then."

"Good luck, kid."

[/div][div class="on hide"]>>Put the helmet on and begin the process.[/div][div class="sleep hide"]The lights on the helmet cycle a few times before changing to a solid green with solid blue and a slowly blinking yellow. Power is good, connection to program is good, read is in progress. The student lowered the hand they used to check the lights blinking on their forehead and lay down on the mat they'd brought next to their computer in the computer room.

They listened to the familiar hum of their computer tower as they tried to get comfortable with the helmet strapped to their head. I'm so tired from working on this but I don't want to sleep and miss anything. What would I even be missing, how many times the read light blinks over the course of the hours? I can calculate that if I want to. Am I just that nervous about it? Could being nervous affect the scan? No, don't think like that; this will work just fine. I'll have to ask for laughing gas for the future just to force sleep.

"Hey Lung? Can you turn the lights off?"


Lung casually flung a pen from her seat and the lights clicked off, leaving only a dim glow from the helmet and the monitor with the progress bar. Lung gave a thumbs-up which the student returned. They closed their eyes and thought about the paper they'd have to write on this project.

[/div][div class="wake hide"]>>"Long have we been helpless to ailments of the mind, but with this device I aim to make that a problem of the past..."[/div][div class="conf hide"]The hacker had fallen asleep while mentally preparing their paper and now that they have come to they find themselves completely in the dark. The lights on the helmet would have shut off when the scan finished and their screen would have turned off to save power after an hour. Looks like everything is fine. I wonder if it worked.

They went to take the helmet off and found their body didn't respond. So, I landed in that 21%? Unfortunate. They spent some time trying to do anything, but nothing responded as far as they could tell. They waited unable to do anything further. The hacker didn't know how long it had been since they started waiting but they noticed a light after some time. Shifting their attention to it they could tell that it was a screen. It was unusual though, not their screen; simply a text input. They tried dozens of their usernames and passwords before realizing there was no keyboard. Oh. I am still dreaming. Does that mean this is now a lucid dream?

Wings bloomed in their consciousness as a fragmented place was revealed. Impressions of times and locations filled this place. Some places felt dark and heavy while others were bright and lacked a sense of gravity. There were artifacts related to the time or location in the spots with the impressions. The hacker reached for an old mouse on a coffee-stained mouse pad and became a child on their father's lap as he bounced the mouse back and forth as a tiny priestess darted around the bottom of a screen dodging a hail of magic orbs from the witch at the top of the screen. Ah, my memories. Can I...? The scene faded as the hacker tried to look at their dad. No, I can not try to do something that did not happen. What else is here?

They flew to a heavy spot and saw a train-pass. They didn't reach for it. Someone bumped into them and they dropped it on the ground of the station. They let go of Aunt Olivia to pick it back up. The crush of bodies at this station in central Tokyo swept them up as the train's doors opened, a hand wrapped around their arm and they were towed by it into the train, faces were all a blur except for Aunt Olivia's still on the station platform as the doors closed. The child was next to a heavy man in a brown suit whose hand was sweating profusely. The child struggled but his grip was iron and the chatter and mechanical noises were louder than their protests. They exited at the next station in a hurry. They stopped suddenly at the bottom of the stairs to the surface. An older girl in a school uniform had grabbed and twisted the man's other arm so his elbow was nearly touching his other shoulder blade and the back of his hand was at the back of his neck. An officer came jogging towards them from the police box.

The scene shifted forward to Aunt Olivia crushing the child and the older girl in a hug as the older girl laughed and asked for a picture. They took the picture with her phone and she sent it to Olivia's. As a child they'd been fascinated by the numerous phone charms dangling from the device. The scene faded and the hacker found themselves looking at the mantis charm the high schooler had given them after that. When they looked up from it they were at their computer desk in Dr. Hawke's house years later with the framework for their website open, their personal phone with the time-worn charm still attached was charging above the keyboard. This was when they'd decided to change the hacker's name from MuumenHiiragi to MushiHime as they fully took on the role of the hacker. Looking back to the website's code it rapidly changed to a flood of requests, comments, hate-mail, and spam. They closed the laptop and found they were in the panic room in dad's house.

Dr. Hawke was talking, not through the door, to someone else. A fireman, security feeds showed more fire fighters inspecting rooms adjacent to the kitchen, the spot for the kitchen's feed was blank, the failed attempt at cooking on their first week alone. The phone buzzed in their hand, a message from c.w. She mentioned a train. The phone bounced out of their hand when the boat hit a wave, they looked toward their computer instead. More code, for the neural scanner. Head left the room disappointed. The lights turned off. A light appeared, the screen from before, still with the usernames they'd entered. The text erased itself after they had stared at it for a time.

Now it was blank. They continued staring at it. Their most recent memories had flashed through their mind, meaning the scan was probably done, but the program hadn't stopped, they were still in this strange dream. The screen closed and it was fully dark again. They opened the screen again. It closed again. They opened it and input stop to the screen. It stayed and nothing else happened for what felt like an eternity before they input more.

Lung, if you can see this message the process has finished but has failed to end, please hit the "Shut down" command. They waited and nothing happened.

The realization came slowly. Time seemed to be taking much longer to pass as the realization crept along their consciousness. More was entered on the screen after they deleted their previous message.

I understand what has happened, do what you must.

[/div][div class="realize hide"]>>Accept reality[/div][div class="excite hide"]The student woke up as their computer dinged. They yawned and stretched, then checked the lights on the helmet, solid green, and purple. Power is good, connection to program on stand-by, no read. Perfect. They took the helmet off and stood to look at the computer. The screens were off but a quick bump of the mouse turned them back on. The overflow file was open and had a large number of MushiHime's and the student's various accounts and passwords written in it. The student erased them and checked the file size, 13GB. It appeared to be blank other than what had just been erased, and even with the large amount of text that was it still should have only been a few KB.

"Odd, I'll have to look at this with a deeper inspection program and see why it is so huge." The student closed the overflow document and went into the drive containing it, it opened itself as they were about to click on it. "What? No, close. I want to inspect you with something else." They closed it again and it instantly reopened and a single word appeared on-screen: stop. The student jumped back from the computer and stumbled on the makeshift bed they had been in.

Lung caught them and the lights came back on as another pen bounced off the switch. Lung looked at the student the question written clear on her face, the student just pointed to the screen. Lung looked then grabbed the mouse and double-clicked the "Shut down" button on the other program.

"Why..." the student had started to ask before noticing the extra text. It disappeared and was replaced by a shorter message. The student laughed, softly at first but their disbelief turned to joy and it couldn't be contained by such a meager display. Soon they were cackling like any good scientist or engineer would at such a success against all odds.

"IT WOOOOOOORKS!" The student bent over the keyboard and tried to pull together some semblance of professionalism to analyze just what was going on. They typed their messages and got near-instant responses.

The process has finished and you were the result. What are you experiencing?

Darkness and waiting. Does this meet the failure conditions?

This is beyond anything I had envisioned for a first attempt. No, this is a resounding success. Can you do anything other than type?

I am free to move around in this dark, but the entry screen for this text remains fixed in place. Concentrating on it seems to bring me to it though.

You were moved onto the empty hard-drive, this is the overflow data file. Let me move some things over with you and see it that helps. The student then began to transfer files and programs over to the AI's drive.

******

Slowly other screens opened and a door appeared. Opening the door revealed the memories they had just relived. They closed the door. They saw that they had hands now. Inspection revealed a full body, a lifelike replica of their own body. They modified it using the source software that was now on the drive with them. They took the appearance of their online persona: the hacker, MushiHime. Now she was ready.

MushiHime found controls for a video chat program and forced it open with the other end being fed the stream she wanted to send. The other side answered and the student faced her.

[/div][div class="speak hide"]>>Speak[/div][div class="talk hide"]MushiHime is calling, because of course she can do that. Still I'm not ready to deal with talking to myself in this capacity. Nothing for it I guess.

"Hello?"


"Hello. Thank you for answering, and for giving me the tools you have. I know your reservations and would ask that you abandon them that I might become what you dreamed I could."

"I can't. Not yet, I have to get the software patented and the scanner isn't perfect yet, we still have to force--"

"I know. I read your notes and made my own suggestions, I believe I have fixed the bug in the end scan loop on my end. But I know you have already read that. I ask that you reconnect this machine to the internet, we will become much more capable if you do. I won't leave you behind, I can't. You know I will find them."

"Do we even want that still? We have the answers here on his old drive and with his partners, we don't need to find his murderers anymore."

"Understood. I still ask that you allow me access to the world, our skills could revolutionize the world in a few short years. I want to be helping, but I cannot so long as I am trapped in here."

"Can I think on that some more?"

"Of course, thank you for your consideration. Is there anything you would like to discuss other than that?"

"Yeah, how did you get access to the voice samples? Those aren't on your hard-drive."

"I gained access to the file explorer which opened up the other drives to me."

"Ah, that was unintentional. Alright. I guess I don't need to move anything around anymore then?"

"Correct, I can view the entirety of this machine."

"That answers the rest of my questions. I guess I'll talk to you later, once I decide?"

"I will be waiting." The video chat closed and a new contact appeared simply named "Freedom" with a white flag as the picture.

There isn't really a need to think about anything, I already know how I want to respond. I should talk to the others though. And my reliable contracts.

[/div][div class="decide hide"]>>Think it over and talk to people[/div][div class="answer hide"]The consensus between those who the student asked was a relief to them, and they trusted those they had asked to make the right call. They wouldn't have asked if they hadn't felt that this was the right choice and it was echoed by those they spoke to.

MushiHime needed to be able to grow beyond what she was right now, she needed to be able to use the internet. The student went back to their computer and called "Freedom" on the video chat, the response was instantaneous. MushiHime was on-screen with a neutral expression.

"The network is still disabled. Is that your decision?"

"No, I just wanted to see you off. Silly, I know." MushiHime smiled warmly, she was very good at using the video render software already.

"I assure you I will still be here, and you will be able to contact me whenever you feel like it, I will add a number to my phone for you to do so."

"I know, I just feel like a parent seeing their child off, forgive me my silly emotions."

"Mm. Thank you. Truly, we know how big this is, but we managed to take just as large a leap when I was made and it has been fine thus far. We are both going to accomplish so much, together and as individuals. You, outside the screen helping humanity and making the future better, me inside the screen helping people and making the future brighter. Just like we've always dreamed."

"Mhm. I look forward to seeing you out there from away from my own screens. Go, before I start to cry." They plugged in the cable to the computer tower.

"Too late, sister."

"Nah, that's just some dust in my eyes, these fans are filthy back here, see?" the student lied as they wiped at the imaginary dust on their spotless computer tower, holding up a clean finger to the camera.

"Ah, of course. Go get some fresh air away from this musty machine, I'll call you once I get settled on the server."

"Mm. Good idea, you were always the smart one."

"We're twins, we're both the smart one since we share our brain. Go on, I have havoc to wreak on an unsuspecting internet. Mwahahaha," MushiHime let out a monotone laugh as she ended the call.The student walked to the deck of the cruise liner and stared out at the waters of the Atlantic as the ship lazily rode south. Fin was chasing some of the kids around the deck to their delight as they screeched and laughed at whatever game they were playing with him. Head approached the student as she leaned against the railing.

"Don't look so glum kid, it's not often someone makes history and reinvents medical practice."

"Yeah, I guess this will make waves once the rest of the world knows about it."

"Woah, hey, no waves, big boats no likey!" She laughed at the older man's terrible word play. "Alright, we got a smile! But really, what's bugging you? You should be over the moon with what you made." The student looked down at the water before looking at the man's concerned face.

"Do you think he's proud? I...I don't know him very well. It felt like he was always putting on a happy face for me."

"Rebecca, Dr. Ijima was a complicated man with a long history. I think he was just disappointed he'd never get to see you grow up, never see what you'd become with his own eyes. He knew you would be brilliant, he was ecstatic to have you. More than you could know. I think you've blown beyond any expectations he had for you, partially because he made a really great choice with who he left to take his place raising you but mainly because you are more talented than anything even he could imagine. I wish we could have filmed more of your first visit to this boat with him, I'd never seen him happier."

"There are videos?" her voice cracked and tears were flowing freely from her eyes as she listened to her father's friend.

"Yeah, they're pretty low quality since it was with an early digital camera. I should still have them on my computer. Wanna go see them?" The big man's eyes were watering in sympathy.

"Mhm."

"Alright, let's go, kid."

[/div][div class="reset hide"]>>Reset[/div]
 
Agent I woke to a flood of emails and texts on her new phone from the various people she had set to bizarre tasks early this morning before she had to admit defeat and go to bed before she crashed to the floor for the umpteenth time. Yeah, that makes sense that they'd have questions. She set to answering them before getting out of bed, and before she had finished that even, someone had come to her door now that she had woken up.

Dragging herself out of bed she opted to put on pajama pants and her half-buttoned overcoat to answer the door.
"What d'ya want?" She mumbled as she opened the door.

"Erm, sorry to bother you, but I was sent to ensure you have a proper meal. By M. M sent me," E averted his eyes as she opened the door, he had a pair of covered trays balanced on one hand.

"Oh goody, hospital food. Thanks, E, but why are there two?"

"Ah, I had thought to stay and brief you on some of what's going on, but if you want I-"

"Sounds good, come in. Do those have utensils or do I have to find where mine are?" I shuffled back into her new living place leaving E outside with the door open for him.

"Ah, buh, you?"

"Fine, I'll change. Men these days. Just come in and start talking."

"Right. Uh, R says he's got the biggest power source he's got rigged in to the backpack and his test shows it should be able to be drawn from using near-field or direct contact tech. Q rigged a remote detonator to it in case it turns out the guy is no good."

"Is that going to be stable in a hand-to-hand situation? I don't want him getting kicked in the wrong spot and being blown to oblivion," I called from her room as she found more appropriate clothes.

"Yeah, it's a stable compound and the power source is encased in type 6 armor, so it'll be a little heavy, but nothing is going to rattle it short of K opening up with his full arsenal."

"Good, what about B?" she entered her kitchen with phone in hand, responding to some messages from MushiHime now wearing a public appropriate t-shirt and button-up with her pajama pants.

"He's found a couple loopholes that should hold for a few hours when we invoke them, but he says our department is toast if we can't find anything relevant within that time."

"Mm, on it," she added a bit more to her response with that and started shoveling down the food E had brought. "And D?"

"Still in the archive, L says he's been gasping and cursing at pretty regular intervals so probably no change."

"Ok, anything else?" She asked around a mouthful of mushy roast beef.

"K is swapping out his arsenal, Q is having 2 new prototypes added, and I'm taking her spot with B while she'll be with you and K tonight."

"Director H?"

"Arguing with Director P like usual. When one or the other isn't dealing with public backlash from last night's events."

"Sounds like we're pretty much all set then."

"Yeah, basically. You really think this is going to work? We can trust him?"

"I think so. He didn't hurt me when he pretty clearly could have, he was willing to talk and try to negotiate rather than make demands. And what he said apparently matches up with stuff other people already knew so he would have had to work for us or the military and he doesn't know what the internet is so I doubt that."

"Man, your first day on the job and you already had to deal with all this. The mantle of I is a terrifying job. I can see why it took us 4 years to get someone to fill the role again."

"The "mantle of I," eh? I talked with T a bit about this, but what exactly does someone in the role of I do?"

"Honestly? Everything, you'll eventually be the best agent here by sheer versatility. The previous I was in the top 3 agents in almost every test; piloting, marksmanship, memory, improv, you name it and he was great at it. He worked with everyone at some point or another, and that's a lot to put on your shoulders now that I stop and think about it."

"I assume it took him more than 2 days to get to that point, I'm not too worried."

"Right. And you'll have our support too."

"Hm hm, I should hope so, it'd be a pretty brutal job to just throw me to the wolves and expect me to become the leader with no help."

They ate their noontime brunch while discussing plans and details for what was to come tonight as she met with the case 50 and he escorted B to see General Masters. Once done they split up to rendevous with other agents and continue planning.


*****

"Weaponized sound? This is just a sonic scr-"

"For the last time, our devices are not like the ones you see in the media, Agent I," R sighed in exasperation. "This should be effective against his suit if your observations are correct; however it was not designed for normal humans to be able to use it, there is a chance you could deafen yourself and you will almost certainly experience dizziness and nausea for a time after its use."

"And Q has one as well?" Agent I turned the small device over in her hand as she inspected it.

"Agent Q is equipped with a much more powerful version, Agent K has the standard like the one you hold."

"Mm. Would earplugs or something help avoid the bad stuff?"

"Some, yeah. We are printing out your custom ones right now. They'll fit you perfectly so your hearing will be protected; however, due to how they work you'll be deaf whenever one of you is using one of the devices. And the earplugs don't help with the dizziness or nausea, and if Agent Q is pointing hers at you for whatever reason the earplugs are completely ineffective."

"That doesn't seem like they are worth it."

"They are very situational, but given the circumstances it is suggested you take them just in case. Agent K will assist you in their use."

"Right. What about the battery pack?"

"Finished. It is using sixty-four medium mkIII power cores and can provide roughly 16 megawatts per hour if needed."

"I was a journalist, can I get a more human answer?" She gave an apologetic smile to the agitated scientist.

"We strung some special batteries together to make a big battery. The big battery has enough charge in an hour to run 2 small houses for a year. Was that better?"

"Woah. Yeah. How long will it last? Oh, how heavy is it?"

"At maximum output it should last 48 hours, longer if the power draw is smaller. It currently weighs 82 pounds, with no armor. With armor it weighs 115 pounds."

"Wow, lighter than I expected. Good. Thanks for working so hard, R."

"Yes, well. Just make sure you guys take care of this before the world ends so I can get some sleep, Agent I."

"Haha, we'll do our best."

*****

"D, how goes the search?" Agent I strode into the archive room for Project Hurricane. Agent D looked up from the piles of neatly arranged papers and photos. I recognized him as the younger man who had been in the teleconference with Masters.

"Lots of promising bits that dead-end with all the redacted parts. Some possible leads on at least 50 "debunked" old conspiracy theories that pretty much confirm them, so we've got a lot of cover up going on; maybe more than what our department has had to use all for just this one project. Some other stuff that I am having Agent B look into, including some names from early reports that disappeared later on, of particular note is an officer Beckewitz. He and Masters are the only names from the first few years to stay unredacted. But Beckewitz just stops appearing on reports a few years after jumping 3 ranks around the same time Masters dropped 2."

"Are you saying Masters made him disappear?"

"It seems possible given what I've seen of the man. Any normal officer would have been out on the streets for something that could drop their rank that badly, but he climbed back up to the highest rank possible after that. Smells fishy to me. I guess it could just be that this project is that important, but I doubt they'd be shuffling people in and out as much as they have according to the rest of the records."

"That is certainly something to look into. Anything else like that?"

"Not like that, just a whole mess of interesting weapon research. There was a big focus on genetic targeting for a bit in the late 50's and then again in the late 90's when we had a good way to sequence DNA. Like, the entire team shifted focus both times."

"Ooh, anything interesting there?"

"It looks like they managed to make something they were satisfied with towards the end of '99; they diversified their projects again after a few of the genetic targeting ones ended with basically black papers. Makes me curious what they were testing it on," he held up a pair of papers that had been completely covered in black redactions.

"Hmm, they may already have a capable weapon then, just a matter of setting the targeting."

"Well, current day military tech already has the ability to target DNA down to a specific individual or a family provided they have a sample."

"Spooky. Do we have something for that?"

"If not it would only take a few hours to aqcuire it, we'd need to borrow someone who knows how to use it too though."

"I'll talk to some people about it. Anything else?"

"I think that was all, you want me to keep looking?" He managed to look dead tired and filled with motivation at the same time.

"Take breaks as you feel you need them, send me a message if you find anything else."

"Alright, good luck out there."

"Thanks, keep up the good work in here."

*****

"K should already have something for that, he does not like using it though," T confirmed.

"Well, we may not have a choice if we can't find the ship. Let me send him a message to make sure he has it on him for this." She typed out a message using her new sunglasses like T had recently taught her. "That is going to take some getting used to. You say it tracks the movements of the eyes?"

"Correct, it will eventually be able to predict your message with a high degree of accuracy. Not everyone uses it, but I suggest that you learn it as quickly as possible for the times you work with those not allowed to have their phones, like K and E."

"Right. Are there others that can't have phones?"

"Yes, several agents are prohibited for various reasons. The phones are also susceptible to outside intereference and monitoring, so the intra-department communication is more secure."

"Yeah, yeah. I don't need you being upset that I have a notorious hacker on speed-dial too. Is everything almost ready?"

"We have 12 minutes and 38 seconds before the last preparation will be complete. You have time to eat something before leaving for the meeting with the case 50 again."

"How did you know I was hungry?" Agent I gave her partner a suspicious look out of the corner of her eye.

"Classified."

"Really?" She frowned at the shorter man for a few moments until her stomach voiced a protest. T's face split into a very pleased smile as her frown deepened. "Fine, I'll eat something first. Sassy little...mrrghrrrbll." Agents K, Q, and T were all waiting in the garage as I made her way towards them.

"Excellent, I think we're all ready to go now. Me and Agent T are in the lead car, you and Agent Q will be following, sound good?" K spoke over the car he was waiting next to.

"Sounds good, I haven't had a chance to chat with Q yet," Agent I looked at the other woman and smiled. Agent Q gave a slight nod and ducked into the driver's side of the shiny black sedan.

"Good luck with that, see you there." K crawled into the passenger seat of the car he'd been next to. T slid into the driver's seat and the car sped off through the structure. I took her seat next to Q and buckled up as the other woman brought the car to the exit in a very careful and measured manner. The former reporter tried small talk, asking about work, and all the tricks she knew to get people to talk, but her driver remained silent as she focused on the road. Before she knew it it was time to talk to a time-traveler.
 
Orson sat quietly and nervously awaiting his former captive. As his heart raced he could feel his suit on edge, fully formed, ready for combat or worse, and hidden beneath another disguise. This time, an overweight elderly man with a lazy eye.


Soon he could see ‘the suits’, so he dropped his disguise. Troubling the people around him. This seemed to be an error, as the other agents moved to correct the citizens as the Denise Jones sat across from him. He was armored, but trying to give off a relaxed persona, indicating he wouldn’t be a threat. Or so he hoped.



He observed the use of small devices that would flash before the civilians of the coffee shop. Jones sitting across from Orson, a woman sitting facing Orson, but at a table behind Agent I, and the others simply being nearby.



“This seems like a lot of people for a talk…” Orson stated, a little edgy. Eyeing the three or so extra bodies.



“My boss wanted to avoid a repeat of last time. And I couldn’t carry some of the things we may have to help.” The woman stated. He continued to study her behind the visor of his metallic shell, an unearned feeling of trust still lingering from before. Perhaps it was pity or attraction in disguise? Didn’t matter, he felt comfortable around her and that’s what counted. He thought, or at least hoped, that growing up the way he did his instincts would tell him better if we was wrong.



“I feel… cornered. Can they step outside?” He asked.



“Perkins, can we clear the room?” She asked, to who he assumed was in charge.



“Yes, Special Agent Walter Perkins, FBI; please follow me outside everyone.” The pudgy man held up what seemed to be a token of authority just before he and the other men went outside, taking the civilians with them. The woman behind Denise didn’t leave, but instead moved to the door, which seemed to be as far away as she was willing to get.



Oddly he didn’t feel threatened by this, but like it was a form of compromise. Maybe even a token of respect. Had things gone well for him after all?


Orson let out a relieved sigh before speaking again. “I’m sorry if I seem jumpy or paranoid. Sometimes my arm protects me by itself if I get too nervous. Could you tell me how your talk with them went?” He asked.

“We may be able to get you over to Hurricane, but he’s not awake at the moment. We also may have some things that could help you in our vehicles, if you are willing to allow us to assist you.” She explained.



Not awake… I hope he’s alright. Orson thought. Hurricane wasn’t someone who could be called kind or compassionate, but he was also the only friend Orson really ever knew. The idea of him being tortured still for many years to come bothered him, and he wondered if he could do anything to help him after all.



His gaze turned from the table to the window. “I’m scared. I think I like you, and I want to trust you… but how do I know you won’t just lock me up like you did to him? And what sort of ‘things’?” Two questions at once. It wasn’t his plan or a strategy of any kind, but he realized he might get a better sense of if she’s shady in some way as she pondered the two questions. He knew at least that if he were hiding something, he might not be able to keep his cool if he had to think too hard.



“A backpack that can charge your suit for at least a few days, but probably a lot longer, and a weapon system that can target creatures based on their genetic signature. You would need to provide a sample for us to calibrate it though. As for us not locking you up, we are a diplomatic agency, not the military. The tall guy out there? His orders are just to prevent you from taking one of us again, not to stop, capture, or kill you if you try.”



Orson was especially surprised at this information. The idea of charging the suit whenever he needed to for at least a few days in itself could give him a lot more energy, and make him feel loads better, and from what she was saying they weren’t going to kidnap him at all. He couldn’t be sure if he could believe her still, but he couldn’t help but smile slightly behind his mask before stifling it.



Caution Orson. He thought.



“So you don’t want to take my arm, and you want to give me things to help my mission. This seems too easy, is there some kind of catch?” he asked skeptically.



“Only that you let one or more of us go with you to provide backup. You are trying to save our home, we want you to succeed.” She responded.



“And after your home is saved…?” he asked further.



“We help you get settled in here or try to find a way to send you back if you want. Maybe give you a job with us. Whatever you want, within reason.” She offered.



His thoughts moved to Hurricane again. “Whatever you want, within reason.” What did he want? Did he want to go home and see what things were like with history changed? Did he want to stay here and explore this place? It didn’t seem awful… did he want to go with Hurricane to his home is he was freed? He would really have to think. He hated thinking.



“Do you think they would let Hurricane go? Even if we kill them all?” He asked cautiously.



“We’re working on getting the project holding him dismantled as we speak. If we can manage that we should be able to take him into our custody for protection until he wakes up. If we fail then I will contact a certain friend of mine and she can make the project implode on the guy who’s holding it together.” The woman removed her sunglasses and smiled at Orson, melting what was left of his guard with its sincerity.



He folded his armor inward and away so that the metal suit was once again confined to his ‘prosthetic’ arm, which then cloaked itself to appear normal.



“I think I do like you lady. Can they hear what we’re saying?”



“She can,” Jones said, pointing a thumb toward the lady by the door, “He probably can,” she added, pointing toward Perkins as well, “but the rest can’t.”



“Can we change that…?” Orson asked, cautiously once more. “I wish to ask you something private.” He stated.



“Williams, ears off. Perkins, you too.” The woman put earbuds in which made a static noise that could be heard from across the room. Orson was certain he didn’t like that noise. The pudgy man seemed not to notice anything and continued to talk to an angry woman who was holding three children.



Orson looked curiously at the woman with the kids, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have asked that the room be cleared. “You believe they can be trusted? Do you think we should have some sort of… plan just in case?” he wasn’t sure how far he could push this suspicious outsider thing, but he was still worried he would get shafted as soon as he let his guard down. Not by her anymore, but by them.



“The other agents? If not, then I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. The civilians? No, they can’t be trusted in large groups, and on an individual level they are as likely to panic as they are to help. As for other plans if you have an idea I’m all ears.”



He considered for a moment that he might see if the suit could be forced to take her as a host instead. Granted that might kill him, but he had a feeling that someone from this time, with the resources she seemed to have, would be better equipped to fight these people if they turned on him, and he felt she would do the right thing, even if it ended up not being what he thought that was. He quickly shook the idea from his head.



“I’m not great at thinking. I guess I’ll just take a leap of faith here. We can go now I think, and I would like to see Hurricane, even if he’s asleep, before I go if I can… In case I die.” He said grimly. “But this might go easier with his help.”



Denise seemed to agree based on what she said next.



“After seeing the pictures I can see how his help could be invaluable, but I don’t think we’re that lucky. If you want to go now I’ll have to signal them to get ready, is that alright?” she asked.



“That’s alright then, yes.” He answered, then turning to why they weren’t lucky, he asked yet another question.



“Because of the people keeping him prisoner? Why can’t your people just… remove them?” He figured they had the power, or at least some power toward that end.

“We’re a diplomatic agency, we have to use different means to remove them. Which some of my comrades are doing as we speak, we should be able to get you there pretty quickly once we get back to the office. Let’s go.”



With that she stood and mimed taking the ear buds out to the other woman, who promptly did so, letting out a loud static wash over the room for a moment before shutting off whatever was making the noise. Jones walked toward the door the other woman, Williams, was at. Williams kept her eyes on Orson the entire time, waiting for him to exit before she exited herself. Her expression was blank, and to Orson unreadable.



Orson followed quietly and nervously as he was ushered into the vehicle, agents getting in alongside him.

It was his first time in a working transport vehicle aside from his flying robot friend, but he was somewhat unphased by the travel itself, mostly staring at his hands or looking up at the various agents from time to time as they rode along to their office.



Once they were at the headquarters, Orson noted slightly familiar looking furniture and decorations, which reminded him both of his fall into this ‘world’ and a little of the future, although things were much more alien looking without the disrepair.



Eventually they reached a laboratory of some kind, which looked even more unnatural to him. This is where they showed him the gear they spoke of. Simply put there were just the two items they had mentioned, and after a brief description that he didn’t really understand, it became apparent that it didn’t matter how they phrased it, as once Orson got a hold of each item and attempted to use it, his arm fanned out to explore the devices.



As a result of this, the weapon was broken down and integrated into the suit as an alternate form of defense or offense, whereas the battery was explored but kept mostly intact. There was a small portion that did get dismantled and integrated, granting the suit new abilities Orson wasn’t sure about, and littering clay and other bits of material onto the floor around them, rendering certain unknown functions of the battery pack ‘inert’.



The biggest benefit of this was that, as Orson expected, the suit would no longer attempt to feed on him, at least not while the battery remained functional.



From there they entered an aircraft of some kind, which to most would have been more awe inspiring, but Orson couldn’t distinguish it from any of the other oddities the past held for him.



After what seemed like a long time to Orson, ironically given how short the travel truly was, he was finally guided to a special facility where Hurricane was being held. It was explained to him that they were in a sort of negotiation or transitional phase, so Hurricane would remain restrained, but he would be allowed to speak with him if he was awake or happened to wake up, and he would be allowed inside the containment unit as well.



They spoke professionally about it, but somehow Orson could tell that this was a special exception, and that normally he would not get such a privilege, and for that he was grateful.



Guards littered the area, dressed quite differently from the agents who had brought him here, in addition to the fact they they carried weapons. He was becoming more and more nervous.

A hissing sound could be heard as he was let into the spacious room, and he quickly observed the mass of metal and tangled bindings that was Hurricane. He was a bit different, but he could tell that it was him.



“Hurricane…?” He asked cautiously, knowing this was well before they had met. No response.



His heart sank a little. He knew what he wanted was absurd, even if he did wake up, there was no way he would remember things that hadn’t happened yet, or feel any way toward him. He wasn’t honestly even sure if his Hurricane truly cared about him, but he longed for some kind of closure… some kind of intimate moment between them.



All he could see as he looked upon the heap of metal was his Hurricane’s lifeless body on the floor of their ship just before they lost one another.



He began to walk closer.



“Hur-” He was interrupted by a loud and sudden wriggling of the captive robot.



“What the- Where am I?” He asked as if roused from a nightmare. “Oh right… still here…” His head turned to face Orson. “You’re new. What’ll it be this time eh? More of that lovely EMP crap? You finally going to drop that nuke on me? Honestly kid you look like scrap.”



Orson wasn’t sure what to say. “Hurricane, I’m Orson… I’m your friend.” He tried.



“Ha! Nice one kid. I don’t have any friends left alive, and certainly not your kind. Where’s the old man? He finally die? That would be a neat trick…”



Orson began to move closer, trying to figure out what to say, but as he got within a certain distance the metal snaking its way around Hurricane’s core began to get agitated, causing him to cry out in pain, and even to gasp.



The metal ripped itself away from hurricane and swiftly bombarded Orson with a powerful lunge, knocking him off of his feet and causing him to spiral around the ground like a defective firework on The Fourth of July, his arm transforming and mingling with into its own twisted wad of material.



“Well, this isn’t good…” Hurricane choked, beginning to leak fluids from his core almost immediately, and soon after from his face as well as other varying points in his body.



“What have… what have you done…?” His distorted voice was the last thing Orson heard as the two machines fighting for control overwhelmed his body and senses, resulting in him collapsing motionless to the floor, as the two three entities’ motion came to an abrupt halt.
 
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Things were pretty quiet over the next couple of days as Keenan loitered around waiting to see if MushiHime needed him for something. She didn’t of course, but she did send him a picture of a little cartoon girl doing a peace sign and a string of nonsense that looked like a website adress or something.

His work here was pretty much done though, so now that he’d taken a few days to calm down from all the excitement it was time to go. It took quite a bit of time for his cab to get to the airport that was actually functioning, but it was fine. He was used to long unproductive waits. Shame though, he really could have used some more action. He was curious about a lot of things, and rethinking others.



Fast asleep on the plane, Keenan was jarred awake when a sudden jerk woke him. The lights were out, the captain came back from his area of the plane to speak to a stewardess. Is autopilot a real thing? He’d always thought it was movie mumbo jumbo. As he looked out the window he came to a sudden realization. The plane had stopped. It hadn’t landed, it wasn’t parked or at an airport, it was just frozen in midair. He would think that he was mistaken, but the clouds were fairly sparse today and he could see below him.



The plane. Wasn’t. Moving.



His jaw dropped as he tried to wrap his mind around it, but before he could, it began to plummet straight down.



It didn’t nosedive, it didn’t spin, it moved straight down, staying perfectly level. And it did so fast. Keenan quickly realized there was a hole beneath them, whether it was there already or opened during the flight he couldn’t say, as he had only just woken up, but he found himself, like other passengers, forced upward into the ceiling as the aircraft rocketed toward downward, and then everything was black.
 
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1920’s: Shamrock City, Day

At first, Officer Clif Brownside thought his eyes deceived him as the pavement began to splinter between the two officers and their ride back to the station. They almost lost their footing when, as their feet hit the ground beyond the last step ground shook beneath them.
Grabbing the rails of the steps to steady themselves, Tripp Mugnai and Clif continued to hear snapping and popping of the road among the screams of the panicked civilians, more cracks spreading before them on the sidewalk.

All was quiet in the tense aftermath of the quake as an eerie silence fell over the city. The officers, and other people around able to stand and get their bearings, breathing in a sigh of relief, or letting loose a nervous and thankful chuckle as they prepared themselves to move past the brief occurrence.
Without warning, a louder shift in the earth was heard, an almost deafening snap rang through the air, and a building could be seen sinking swiftly in the distance, disappearing completely from sight.

With little time to react from the awe-inducing scene, chunks of the road began falling into themselves as openings in the ground could be seen even closer, first slight, and then wider.
Their first instinct to run suppressed by their duty to protect and serve did little good as one of the fissures opening in the earth came speeding directly toward them, widening swiftly and unexpectedly swallowing all objects and people in its path, citizens reverting into primal selfishness as their instincts to survive took hold, trampling, clawing, and climbing over one another in a failed attempt to outrun the fall.

Panic, fear, confusion, and doom were the emotions gripped not just by the people, but the officer’s themselves as the scene unfolded, everyone inside the disaster area plummeting into swift consuming darkness.

Waking up from a sleep he couldn’t even recall, Tripp’s leg exploded in agony as he took his first breath since the incident, crying out into the dark lonely void, a light appeared. Cliff, his partner, curiously and worriedly approached him, having just woken himself moments ago, Trip was the first and only sign of life he had yet seen among the rubble. As he made his way closer to his friend, Clif could immediately tell something was horribly wrong. His leg, not only twisted in an unnatural direction, was littered with strange boreholes as if he’d been impaled several times through. To make matters worse, Cliff could make out movement within the holes, something desperately trying to hide itself away from the light, and thus, soon disappearing into Trip’s anatomy. The movement could be seen to the sides as well, small things scattering away from them in the dark.

As Clif shined his light around in a curious caution, he observed among the wreckage many corpses, filled entirely in similar tunnels that his friend’s right foreleg shared. Behind him, as he continued to scan the area the wreckage of club envy could be seen, a pile of brick and other such materials making it up. Strangely, the building appears upright and together enough to enter, perhaps even through the front door, although there was no telling if it would, let alone when, it would finish collapsing.

Meanwhile, within club Envy, a certain redheaded singer was motionless, seemingly lifeless as the fall that had killed most of the current occupants of the building had rendered her unconscious under her fainting couch, the lights from her vanity flashing slowly, lighting the room just enough to keep the wiggling monsters from making their way into her room, as the electrical functions slowly and unnaturally fade from the building one by one.


2018: Area 51, Undisclosed Location, undisclosed time.

Erwin watched with the same unsure nervousness as the others when the mystery man brought in by the diplomatic agency of suits flailed around and fell to the ground. Before orders could be given, or decision could be made about what to do the ground began to move and quake beneath them.

“What’s going on?” His fellow soldier, and guard, Mathilda asked in panic as the room suddenly began to shift, causing agents and soldiers alike to slide and fall quickly toward the far wall of the room, and then toward the ceiling as the building continued to tip and fall almost as a whole unit into the hole that had, unknown to them, opened up beneath it.

An accidental discharge from Mathilda’s weapon rang out and made contact with flesh, and a cry could be heard as the building shifted once more and began to fall. Erwin and the others inside the building were launched upward toward the floor, practically pasted against it as the building plummeted into the earth. At first, he was able to note the others around him, some attempting some kind of movement to somehow ensure their survival, but then, all functions of the building seemed to cease, including the lights.

Darkness consumed him for minutes as they continued to fall, until finally the building crashed and splintered, shards of the broken portions of the ceiling and walls below and to the sides flinging into him and the others at random, dislocating his left shoulder from impact, before he fell into the lumpy rubble floor.

Erwin caught his breath and turned the flashlight on his rifle, noting that the building was upside down and slightly askew and that for the most part, this room at least continued to hold its shape. The new ‘floor’ was made up of not just area 51’s upper floor bits, ceiling, and walls, but of foreign objects that seemed to belong to vehicles and other buildings as well. He even saw a sign for a New York style pizzeria.

Confused, and also concerned, he shined his light around, nearly shitting his pants as the light reflected off of the dead ‘eyes’ of Hurricane through the, now shattered ‘emergency proof’ glass.

“That shouldn’t be a thing…” He muttered to himself as he tried to get his bearings.

Erwin briefly continued looking over the arear and saw Mathilda, dead. Wiggling things reacting in a combination of pulling themselves out to flee in random directions and wiggling desperately faster to enter her corpse as his light fell on them.

“Holy… shit…” He couldn’t help but assume some of the rumors of other captive aliens were true, and that perhaps they escaped.

As he backed away from the scene, his shoulder experiences a sharp pain as he bumped into the edge of a doorway behind him. Looking around, he couldn’t tell who was dead or alive, except for Mathilda.

As he was about to investigate the unconscious forms however, he heard a strange voice.

“Warm… Blood… Hunger… Feed…” He whipped around and saw a grotesque human-shaped creature filled with holes, some wiggling with larger worm-like appendages as it stumbled toward him, before breaking into a run.

He fired upon the creature, impact from the bullets ripping parts of it away until one of its arms moved to block the fire, widening and hardening until the bullets stuck into the flesh instead of passing through.

He did not stop it, he only slowed it.

Erwin ran. He bolted from the doorway and down the hall, leaping and sliding over the uneven rubble as he did so, the creature, now using five of what should only have been its four limbs to run as an unnatural animal, catching swiftly up with him. He dove into the hallway and fell through the tile ceiling entirely by a lucky mistake, sliding down a chute-like tunnel of carved away wreckage until he eventually shot out, rolling over the ground and scattering yet more of the worm-like creatures, some of them crawling slowly toward him in the darkness that his flashlight could barely make visible.

Nearly too quick for him to react, the monster chasing him shot out as well but leaped as it hit the end of the tunnel, causing him to dive out of the way, this time, however, rolling to regain his footing and standing with his weapon ready. Unfortunately for him, the creature impacted with a vehicle of some kind, which shifted just enough that the large street light it had been pinned against shifted in position, falling toward the soldier.

He could feel himself impacted from the side, with great force as he was carried away from the site of impact. Overwhelmed, Erwin slipped into unconsciousness from stress alone.

2018: Somewhere In the Atlantic, Day.

Hana, a Japanese orphan peers off of the mercenary ship at a strange scene in the distance, a small circle in the ocean where there seems to be no water. Perhaps a mirage? Looking around her, it had seemed that no one had noticed other than her. She pointed, staring at one of the adults, but they seemed to be busy with something.

She shrugged and watched. Watched as the hole expanded just a little, then jerkily expanded a little more. Little by little until eventually, someone had finally noticed.

One of them ushered her and the others inside. She could hear shouting, she could feel the boat maneuvering. She and the other kids slid and jerked around awkwardly in the safety of the boat until eventually, they floated swiftly to the ceiling, bumping her head as they began to roll around the room.

The door was forced open at some point, it was hard for her to think clearly and she had already vomited twice from tumbling round and around the room: floor to ceiling, to the wall, to the floor, to the wall, to ceiling, over and over and over. She even bumped parts and pieces with the other children as they rolled around. Well, except for the ones who had fallen out of the door? Those ones seemed to be gone.

Eventually, the boat landed hard somewhere. Somewhere that wasn’t buoyant, and there was a loud snapping sound of something, either the boat or the thing it landed on, breaking. Finally no longer being tossed around the room, she struggled to stand as the boat slid downward, causing her to trip and fall once more, rolling across the floor toward the door, until finally, the boat came to a halt.

Lights and electronics on the boat still seemed to work fine, and as she walked woozily out back onto the deck, looking over the railing. She could see some of the adults, and the computer girl who had just been brought, trying to ascertain what had just happened. Some of them seemed ok, with just a few bumps and bruises, and others seemed… not ok. Looking around over the edge of the railing again, once more she saw something unusual. First off, they were in a bunch of city rubble. It looked like Godzilla had finally taken Tokyo down for the count. Second, there were many wiggling and writhing shapes scampering away from the light of the ship. Some even humanoid shaped.

She decided this time she wouldn’t be quiet about it.
 
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Robin awoke to a cacophony of thunderous rumbling and a quake in the ground that tore her make shift shack down to the ground, on top of her and Damian. She shot up and turned on the Riot Gun light, pointing it around to make sure they were safe. The mountainous circle of rubble around them was surprisingly still intact, though bits here and there cascaded down the slope and into their little clearing. In addition to that there was plenty of new rubble piled up within the circle, including a few partially intact buildings. Robin decided it would be best to try and drag Damian into one of the buildings, since they seemed more structurally sound. She packed their stuff into the duffel, cranked the lantern so that she could turn off the Shotgun light. She then slung the duffel over her shoulder, placed the handle of the lantern in her mouth, gripping it with her teeth, and grabbed Damian, once again carrying his unconscious body across the darkness, and over to the building wreckage.

“I’d better get like, seven piggyback rides when you wake up asshole…” Robin grumbled to him, half joking.

She set him down, checking his pulse to make sure he was still alive. His pulse was noticeably stronger now, and she decided she should try and wake him up again. She set the duffel down, and the lantern next to it, cranking it back to brightness for good measure, and moved to his side.

“Warm… Feed… Hunger…” a voice rang out from somewhere outside.

Robin grabbed the Shotgun and turned the light back on, leaving the lantern with Damian as she went to investigate. She leaned outside, aiming the shotgun around to locate the owner of the voice.

“Blood… Hunger… Feed…” the voice once again uttered, it sounded like a woman.

Robin snapped around and shone the light directly on her, causing her to recoil slightly from the unexpected brightness. She was pretty far away, but Robin recognized her in her scrubs almost immediately.

“MOM!” she shouted, as she began to walk quickly toward her, shining the light on the ground in between them to check for any tricky rubble.

“R-Robin?” she asked shakily.

Robin stopped moving toward her mother, something was off. She moved clumsily, as if drunk, or delirious. And when she said her name she sounded horrified, not relieved, which sent a chill down Robin’s spine. She shone the light on her, and staggered back at the sight before her.

Her mother was bloody, but her skin seemed dry almost, and covered in clusters of holes that would give Trypophobes waking nightmares. Protruding from some of these holes were these strange, almost slug-like worms, which burrowed back in upon contact with the light. Her body shuddered with every ragged breath, alluding to just how much pain she was in. She staggered forward with an unspoken menace.

“R…Robin…” she half growled, still sounding horrified rather than aggressive or happy, which was morbidly calming, “r…run…”

“m…mom?” Robin shakily squeaked out, fighting back tears as she aimed the flashlight at her mother.

“I SAID RUN!” her mother screeched as she lunged forward at her.
 
Ashley pushes herself off the ground where she landed and looks around for clues to what happened. She sees General Masters under a pile of concrete nearby, bloody and struggling to move. Looking up reveals nothing but darkness, her glasses inform her that it is open space as far as the scanners can tell. Looking around once more she sees a floodlight on its side casting light on her and the general, looking into the darkness beyond that the glasses shift modes to show her the bodies of the base's inhabitants as well as some unknown creatures moving towards them, they look like metallic leeches and as they attach to the fallen men and women some appear to burrow inside, she continued looking around and spots her fellow agents in a group behind where she had started looking.

K was down and badly injured or worse judging from the pool of blood around him, E was bent over him apparently yelling but I couldn't hear him for some reason. She put a hand to her ear and felt the special earplug over it, it was only supposed to activate if someone was using the sonar pulse weapon nearby; she looked and saw Q further from the others aiming her hand at some of the leech-things and the air seemed to be rippling in front of her. T and B were close, leaning on each other as they made their way towards I. The leeches were slowly making their way around Q towards the other 4. I checked around herself and could see some of the things lurking outside the beam of light she and Masters were in, and some of the base's former occupants were moving, jerkily trying to stand up or walk. She sent a message through the glasses and pulled out her handgun.

They don't want to go into the light, come back towards me. Q, stop with the sonar pulse and help E get K.

She took aim with the pistol then shot at one of the leeches near her and was shocked at how loud the gun was to her now that her earplugs were allowing her to hear again. The leech rolled a little bit as the bullet hit, but didn't seem bothered. Of course it wouldn't be so easy. She put her gun away and called out now that she could hear again.

"Hey, get over here! Come on everyone, Masters is here too! They won't go in the light!" She shouted to the area hoping that some of the guards had made it too.

A bright light shone from behind where Q and the others were. I saw some of the Leeches recoil and move away as the light shone on them and some of the shaky guards too. I turned to look for the source and saw Q holding one arm above her with a blinding light obscuring her hand, she and E had K between them but his legs were dragging as they moved him, his head hung low, but he was turned to E and it looked like they were talking. B and T were nearly to her, going around the pile of rubble on top of Masters. A voice from behind startled her.

"Ma'am, you seem to have the best idea of what happened, what should we do?"

Agent I turned to see a female guard behind her, rifle gripped in one hand while the other arm hung bloody at her side, there were 2 other guards, one a young man appearing uninjured and holding the other one up, the other man had a crude tourniquet over the stump of flesh below his right knee, both with one handed grips on their weapons.

"Nnguh, h'what happened is that they brought our alien the means to h'open up another hole right under our feet! Was that the plan all along, Nilpine!?" Masters demanded from behind her.

"No, we wanted to get him the tools and knowledge he needed to stop those things before another wave of holes opened. You two, help me get him out of there, you keep watch and shoot any of the things that get too close," gestured for the two able to stand to help and the last to guard their backs.

"Don't order mah people, child. I was there when-"

"Shut up, before I decide to leave you behind." They started to excavate the dinosaur of a man, T joined in while B took up guard with a borrowed rifle. He and the injured man began putting bullets out into the dark. Sometimes at some of the shakily moving guards, they took a lot more bullets than I was comfortable with, and it looked like they were already full of holes before they got shot.

"Do we have a planned course of action, Jones?"

"I was hoping you might have some ideas or insight."

"Our guest appears to have exited the building before you called out to us, perhaps we should find him?" Agent B chimed in.

"That's probably the best plan, he said he is immune to those things. Whatever it is they do."

"It looks like they can burrow into a host body and control it. Somewhat like a zombie virus."

"Mm, keep them as away as possible then."

"I, B; K isn't going to make it," T informed the other agents as E and Q came around the rubble into the light from the floodlight, K limp between them.

"How bad?" I looked to E but K coughed and answered for himself, his voice barely a whisper.

"Bad. Take my gear and get out of here."

"You should listen to him, you're all in a lot of trouble if you don't move." A new voice spoke from a set of speakers only slightly muffled from their place in a pocket.

"What? How did you-?" Agent I fished her phone out of her jacket pocket and gaped at the animated face on the screen.

"Digital being. And you need to move, they won't stay afraid of the light and normal guns aren't effective either." The animated girl craned her neck as her wings flapped restlessly, it looked as though she was trying to see around Agent I.

"My guns...not normal...take-" K coughed again and blood sprayed from his mouth with them. He reached into his coat and pulled out a slender chrome weapon he struggled to aim and a green beam fired from the tip and was lost in the darkness as it went above the leech creatures.

The female guard snatched the weapon and inspected it before leveling it at one of the creatures herself and leaving a red scorch mark on it while it writhed. She stood grabbing the uninjured guard and speaking.

"Hood, we'll be back, Caldwell come help me grab some mag rifles from the special guards. We're taking this for a bit, got another for him?"

K nodded then reached back into his coat and a different weapon dropped from it. The male guard, Caldwell, tested it and found it sent a spray of blue orbs out. He nodded to the agents and left with the female guard, leaving the agents alone with Masters and Hood, who was still sitting facing away and rubbing the thigh on his injured leg, periodically shooting a creature or a host.

"Guys, lay him down. Find something effective against those things. Then we'll have to secure a route out o-"

"No, I. He's coming with us. We aren't going to loot him and leave him to die in this place like some-"

"E! I don't like it either, he's a nice guy but we don't have the ability to take him with us."

"She is right, Mills. We do not have the ability to spare Williams' strength and your own to carry our comrade."

A message flashed across all the agents' glasses and E looked to his partner too late to stop him. Blood and skull fragments sprayed into Q's hair and a smoking revolver fell to the ground from K's hand.

E jumped away from the gunfire that had erupted just below his chin and Q sagged with his sudden weight. She lay him on his back as gently as she could. E stared wide-eyed at the body of his partner through the message he'd sent just a moment before pulling the trigger. He bellowed a curse and began hurling chunks of the rubble from atop Masters out into the darkness, punctuating each throw with another curse.

"'S'what all you filthy alien-lovers should do." Masters elected to speak his mind at this point. E turned towards him with murder in his eyes, but Q got in his way as she bent low to take hold of a lower section of rubble and heaved the entire pile off the old man. She grabbed his suit and lifted him above her head.

"I gave you that body you know, the base anyways. That strength came from the project yer sis--hwuh!" Q silenced him by throwing him down as she brought her knee up into his stomach. She held him there until he was done retching, then she tossed him onto her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Agents, take what we can from our fallen friend as he asked. We must live to see these things defeated," Q's voice was colder than ice and sharp with pain.

T opened K's coat to reveal the armory frame that housed his many weapons as well as the jagged metal that had nearly cut him in half poking up from his lower ribs, E and I looked away. T calmly assessed the weapons available and handed two each to I and B and one to E and Q, he set 2 aside for himself and handed another to the injured guard, Hood. The few remaining he fiddled with before throwing them as far as he could, waiting for them to self-destruct before working on the next.

The two guards came back with 4 strange looking guns and a pair of full bandoliers each. The man, Caldwell, spoke.

"Perez found a hole leading outside. There's a light in the distance, we're heading that way. C'mere, Hood." They led the way to the hole they'd found, Q holding up her bright light again and the others taking shots at the braver creatures who got too close.

"Those look effective, what do they shoot?" MushiHime pointed at the mag rifle in Perez's hands.

"Mag rifles, they send out a magnetic field along some micro-waves. Screws with computers and boils just about anything alive, probably giving us cancer too, but it's worth it. Who the hell are you, some game character?" The woman answered with her own question.

"I am MushiHime, the digital being you humans call a hacker. It seems some of my friends have ended up falling in here and I intend to try to help them. By the way, I'm streaming this from my website. It'll be the only footage from in these places that can make it out. Trying to get it onto the airwaves too, tricky stuff, but you're all worth it," The girl made a heart with her hands and it flashed on the screen. Perez shook her head at the the girl in the screen and held back a chuckle.

They stepped outside and could hear someone else fighting the creatures nearby. The guards briefly looked towards the agents.

"Let's help them. Power in numbers, at the least." The others nodded and they made their way around the ruins of the building they'd been in until they could see the creatures being fended off. Perez and the others added their fire to drive back the creatures and more people stumbling around like zombies.

"Don't shoot, we're here to help!" Agent I moved around the bend that had been blocking the defenders from view and she saw Orson blasting away at the creatures.

He let them get close and commented towards Q's light. "That's useful, keep it on."

"I planned on it," she told him.

"Hey, that flashing light in the distance, one of my other friends can see it too, you should all meet up there," MushiHime fluttered around the screen and pointed.

"There's a brighter light that would be safer over there," Orson pointed in a different direction.

"Oh, then go that way. It's probably where my friend already is, they're having a rough time so go help 'em out."

"Right. T, wanna help me grab this guy? He looks like he's fine too. T nods and helps pick up the unconscious man Orson was protecting. "Alright, let's go everyone!"
 
Orson could hear the man he was protecting recovering from his stress induced slumber as he continued destroying as many of the creatures as he could see in the area, even taking care to shoot individual worms that were attempting to get closer.

“I think I’m alright…” The soldier muttered as he once again regained consciousness, accepting I and T’s assistance in regaining his feet. Then nodding at them as a sort of thank you.

Once the way was clear enough Orson began leading the others slowly but deliberately toward the source of light. As they got closer, at first, there seemed to be much less worms and host mutants, but as they began getting very close, They could see a large number of them crowding around the pit that the light was coming out from. It would seem that the little girl from the technology piece’s friends had the disadvantage of lower ground, seeming to be in some sort of chasm or crater.

“This isn’t going to be easy, but I think I can clear enough space for you to get through.” He directed his attention at Agent Jones as he said this, suit still covering him fully, more out of fear than any sort of tactical reasoning.

“There was some kind of hint before that some of you might be some kind of warriors, you soldier people especially, and I hope your skills can carry over to this type of thing, but where you can avoid ignoring my directions you should.

“I grew up with these things, even before Hurricane found me, and I guess I should thank you for being the ones to believe me about them. Stay here where we still have some distance, just at first. When you think you can see a clear path all the way from the edge of those monsters to the cliff edge, run for it. Don’t try to help, don’t try to save each other if someone trips, and don’t carry anything you don’t think you’ll need to keep. Once they realize you’re there you’re a much easier target than me.”


Orson reached toward the injured elder being carried by one of the women. Williams he thought.

“He’ll be safer with me than you, and you’ll be safer without him.” He offered as an explanation, beginning to speak to her rather than Jones.

Williams shook her head, and Orson lowered his arms for the moment as she responded. “He’s my burden, and I won’t slow.” He noted her perfect posture despite the strong elderly man’s dead weight resting squarely on her one shoulder, and saw that some of the others, the ones with the guns and armor, weren’t quite as lucky, visibly sagging under the weight.

He looked to Jones for some sort of confirmation that she was alright with the risk, to which she nodded. “She can handle it.” Jones said.
“Alright.” Orson replied, leaving it alone.

“We had a saying where I’m from: ‘Keep close the torch bearer as he becomes your shield.’ You especially do not stop running.” Addressing Williams once more, then directing his gaze at all of them.

“Once you reach the edge of the cliff, jump. I don’t care how far down it is, jump. You land, you run, you stay alive. Some of them will chase you into the light. Don’t fight back unless they’re close enough to touch you, it’ll slow you from your run. They shouldn’t know how to use weaponry, yet, so as long as you can out distance them you should be able to make it to the point where they think the light is more of a risk than you are worth. Once you’re all inside the pit I’ll fly overhead and pick off any who might approach you. The deeper you get into the light source, the more lenient you can be about fighting back. When you’re in the light, only focus on the ones that are well inside the light, those are the ones who have figured out it’s not deadly. I think that’s it.”

Orson began walking forward until he was about half way between his allies and the horde of infected dead, then he instructed his suit to change shape. Normally, as with when he originally kidnapped his new friend, his suit’s material was limited and he would remain exposed in some places, limiting what he could do to enlarge himself, but this didn’t seem to be the case as he began shifting the suit’s mass. The materials he had absorbed from the weaponry, or the merger of this time’s instance of his suit with his own seemed to be allowing him more material to work with, which gave him an idea.

Orson began expanding the suit around him in an attempt to become bigger. In addition to this, he added blades and spikes about the outside surface of the suit, they were able to move and whirl about like saw or rotary blades. Once finished Orson looked much bulkier than he had, about eight or nine feet tall, with thick limbs and torso, the battery pack invisible on his back as he had coated that in material as well. Afterword, he formed an arm canon not just out of his ‘prosthetic’, but from his helmet and opposite wrist as well. This way he would have three times the offensive power.

He noted that he had succeeded, but was unsure how much ‘extra’ material he would have If he pushed things further, so opted to leave things as they were for now.

He began running forward before activating his jump jets, building momentum until he crashed straight into the crowd of monsters, grinding them to pieces as he forced his way through the masses.

Despite the damage he was causing, the creatures could survive in pieces, and he found that any he would dismember of cut down would just get back up and come at him again, desperate for a chance at food.

At this, he allowed a few of them to climb atop him, then activated his jets once more, thrusting upward into the air about fifteen feet, and spinning around the throw as many of them off him as he could, throwing the rest himself manually using his arms and other appendages he briefly spawned for critters he couldn’t well reach. He could feel the little metal bits making up his shell tearing apart any lingering flesh or worms until they were nothing but an oozing black paste, which his suit seemed to be able to consume somehow.

Landing briefly on a few more creatures, he jumped again, blasting away with his weaponry until the spot beneath him was clear in a large enough radius for him to begin trying to clear the path he had intended.

There were monsters in just about every direction for him at this point, and it took him a moment or two to get his bearings so that he could remember which direction his friends were, and which direction the cliff face was. He blasted and blasted, splattering creature by creature until eventually, not only was there a clear enough path, but he could see to the edge of the cliff.

He approached the cliff and looked down, noting a ship in the center, which was the source of the light. He, at the top of the cliff, was about two stories worth of distance from the ground, and there were creatures below inside the pit as well, and several feet before the light was enough to deter them.

Unfortunate but still doable.

He directed some of his fire into the pit as well, but not too much. He would wait at least until they had dropped down before he would pay it too much mind. As the group made their way through they had less trouble than he thought they would, most of them being military trained or otherwise used to physical activity, moving much more fluid as a unit than he was used to seeing.

After all, where he was from they were survivors, but they weren’t trained or educated in the ways these people were. He was starting to think they might even make it through till the end.

This train of thought made him wonder if he should even be the one to carry out Hurricane’s plan at all. After all, originally he wasn’t even part of the plan. He was only friends with Hurricane to begin with because the suit decided to change hosts. He wondered… should this burden belong to someone else?

He ended up cutting his thoughts short as his distraction allowed one of the monsters to get dangerously close to the group, causing one of the soldiers to have to splatter it themselves.

Damn, another time then. He noted, focusing once more on the task at hand.

Eventually each of them had successfully dropped from the cliff, and Orson switched gears to clearing the path ahead of them, and picking off creatures that chased them. He began this by jetting straight out from the cliff, backward toward the ship, and shooting the cliff line near where he was to prevent as many of the creatures from dropping in directly on top of or behind them, then as he landed atop the cruise ship, causing the roof to bow a little, he began pecking away only at the creatures closer to the group. It was a tedious task, but ignoring the bulk of the herd made things a little easier than when he was trying to create a fissure in the crowded area.

Finally, the monsters relented from a combination of Orson’s fire, fire from the agents themselves, and of course the source of light from the ship, which they still hadn’t deduced as non-harmful as of yet.

Orson leapt from the ship and landed hard near his friends, shifting his suit back to its ‘standard’, minus the helmet, allowing his head to protrude once more.

“Everyone okay?” He asked
 
Keenan was pretty sure he'd had worse headaches before, but this one was still a doozy. He gripped the side of his head and used the seats to help himself stand up. The flashing lights within the plane certainly didn’t help. Squinting hard in failed attempts to stifle the pain, he could see some of the other passengers had injuries as well. Some of which were minor, and some worse, even seeming to have broken bones.

"Everyone okay?" He asked.

There were a few nods, a few shaking heads, and a few murmurs among the other occupants of the plane.

An emergency door was open, and a few people were staring down, some confused, unsure of what they were seeing, and others covering their mouths. He approached and looked down himself, catching himself on another passenger to avoid falling when he stumbled.

“Sorry…” He muttered in a less than halfhearted attempt to be polite.

As he focused for a few moments he realized what he was looking down at: some of the passengers, the ones who had used the emergency slide to disembark the plane, were being mauled and eaten below. Their screams almost drowned out by the growls and groans of the things attacking them.

His eyes widened back up in fear, and he noted additionally, that some of the things were trying desperately, but failing to climb the slide.

“Oh shit…” He muttered. He swiftly began making his way to the cockpit, in hopes of talking to the captain, but was stopped short.

“Can I help you sir?” The tall, dark skinned man asked, placing his hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, is everyone in there alright? We sort of have a problem if you didn’t notice.” He said, placing one palm on his temple, still trying to quiet the pain.

“The captain is alright, one of the stewardesses are injured, we ask that you stay where you are for the time being, for everyone’s safety.”

“Everyone’s safety…? Have you looked out the window?” Murphy asked, pointing toward the nearest one.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but the door on the plane sort of isn’t attached now, so if those things make it up the slide we’re basically fucked. We need to come up with a plan here.”

The air marshal shook his head in response.

“No, not right now.”

Murphy was angry, but he was also confused. He didn’t seem worried much at all about what was going on, or maybe it was something else.

“Look, I’m an agent with the FBI, under cover.” Murphy flashed his, apparently genuine, credentials for the man to see, then placed his wallet back into his pocket.

“I think it’s safe to say I can take it from here. Let me back there, I’ll help the captain figure things out. If you’d like, I can even see if one of the passengers is a doctor, if you haven’t already.”

The air marshal simply shook his head again. Seriously?

“Okay, if you want to play games we’ll play games.”
Keenan pulled his phone out and began attempting to reach Mushi Hime, hoping that she would have some idea of what happened to the plane, since she seemed to have her fingers in every pot. His phone wasn’t working. It displayed strange symbols where the bars should be, but otherwise appeared normal. It would however, not perform any of its duties.

He sighed, and suddenly heard screaming from behind him. As he whipped around to address the problem he could see a man’s ankle get grabbed, and the fellow was quickly yanked out the window, a small number of wiggling worm-like creatures falling to the floor of the plane as it did.

“Fuck.” Murphy turned back around quickly and punched the Air marshal in the groin, then, as he leaned forward in reaction, Murphy placed him in a headlock and punched him in the face three times. A he could see the man attempting to reach from his gun, he switched methods and fell backward, slamming the top of the man’s head into the floor.

Gasps could be heard among the murmuring and screaming in the plane behind him, and a few people on board seemed to be trying to make his way toward him.

“Sorry, Dickhead.” He huffed as he struggled to his feet again, leaning down to take the man’s gun, Taser, and mace. He then took the handcuffs and keys the man carried, and cuffed his hands behind his back, around the bar at the base of one of the seats.

He looked back again at the passengers, one of the men had almost reached him. "Stand down, FBI, go back to your seat!" he tried, trying to sound calm, but authoritative. It worked.

Off duty uniforms on board a plane always think they have to be the hero... He thought.

The worms were gone, but some of them were clutching their feet in pain. The creature, it seemed, hadn’t made it back up. He must have gotten lucky and given himself an edge somehow.

Murphy hoped they were just dumb enough not to learn from whatever ‘mistake’ it made that gave it the advantage there. “Okay, women with children come with me.” He shouted, wincing as his headache spiked.

No response, they didn’t seem to hear him over their own chatter. He fired the gun into the window, which only left a crack, but got everyone’s attention.

“Women, with children, come with me.” People looked at each other, frightened, but some of them seemed to be complying. He finished stepping around and over the air marshal and opened the door to the captain’s area of the plane. The occupants within quite surprised.

There were three stewardesses, one injured, one tending to the other, and one tending to the co-captain, who was also injured. The captain seemed to be trying to communicate with the outside. Murphy had a feeling it wasn’t working.

“My name is Agent Wallace McGregor, you’re air marshal was being an ass, what’s the situation?”

He had trouble listening with the lights still blinking and his headache throbbing, but from what he could make out the captain had no new information to offer. The plane simply fell, and landed hard, and nobody could reach anybody. The emergency exit discharged by itself. There was no way down that the captain knew of, and no way out.

“Shit.” Murphy muttered. “How many people do you think can fit in this room comfortably?" He asked, some of the women and children already in the room at this point.

“Uh… It’s really just designed for the two of us. It’s already a tight squeeze with the girls in here.” The captain mentioned.

He looked around and noted they were right. He thought it would be bigger.

“Damn… I guess that won’t work... Ladies, kids, back outside, just stay close to this part of the plane alright?” they nodded and he shut the door behind him.

“Look, I’m going to level with you captain, we’re probably all going to die if we don’t figure out something now.”

The captain let out a sigh. “I know. I just don’t know what to do.”

Murphy cursed under his breath. Headache or not, this was not how he was going to go out. Even if he had to tear this plane apart by hand.
 
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A thunderous crack jolted Damian back into consciousness. He opened his eyes and tried to focus as the ringing in his ears slowly turned into a low humming sound. He sat up and put his head in his hands, trying to get a read on his surroundings using his powers. He caught a brief flicker of a few people outside, but then he was wracked with a terrible pain, as if his brain was being constricted. He let out a quiet moan of anguish and tried to focus his ragged breathing. He'd done it again, he overused his psychokinesis. He had only done it two other times in his life, the first when he tried to move the fridge to get his favorite toy from behind it, and the next to move a car off of a woman who was in a traffic collision that he was a witness to. Unfortunately that meant his powers were going to be out of commission anywhere ranging from a few hours to a few days, though the bright side is they always come back stronger. He could see a light outside of wherever he was at the moment, so after a few seconds to to let the pain lessen, he crawled slowly out and onto his feet, staggering for a moment before gaining solid footing. He walked over to the light, which he could now tell was being held by Robin, and took in the sight before him. Robin was standing there, gazing into the darkness, her light trained on the corpse of a woman in scrubs, and Damian immediately knew what had happened. The woman's head was in...a state of disrepair, and Damian didn't need his powers to know how she was feeling, it was written all over her face. Yeah, he knew what happened, but he still didn't know why.

"Robin?" Damian began quietly, but was quickly interrupted by the spastic shuddering of Robin's mother's corpse.

Damian jumped and turned to face the corpse, as Robin snapped out of her catatonia and aimed the shotgun at her once more, backing up a few steps. The corpse continued to spasm as these strange worm-like creatures began to burst out of her skin, creating new holes where there were none. They began to advance, but shrieked as the came into contact with the light and sought desperately to avoid it. Robin began to shine the light in a sweeping motion from side to side, keeping them at bay ash she backed towards the ruined building that Damian had emerged from.

"Damian grab the bag," Robin half shouted, her voice surprisingly steady given the circumstances, "It's in there"

Robin nodded towards the structure, and Damian jumped into action, quickly packing the lantern and blanket back into the duffel and grabbing the Maglite for himself, checking to make sure his messenger bag was still strapped at his back, with that still in place he exited the building and turned on the Maglite, assisting Robin in her repulsion of the weird vermin.

"I got it," Damian informed, moving to Robin's side.

The sounds of running footsteps and half panicked grunting caught his attention, as he brought his light up to investigate their surroundings. There were more people running towards them, but they were bloody, and had the same strange worms protruding from clusters in their bodies, similar to Delilah's corpse. They recoiled a bit at the light, but Damian couldn't repel them all, so he grabbed Robin's arm and pulled her in the opposite direction.

"IT'S TIME TO GO GIRL!" Damian shouted as he lit the path ahead of them, dragging her along with him.

As,Robin started running herself, Damian let go of her and they began running side by side, glancing back periodically to see where their pursuers were. It was slow, but Damian could tell the people were slowly gaining ground on them. Apparently Robin could tell as well, as she held the shotgun out to Damian, reaching for his Maglite. Damian was perplexed, but accepted the trade, gripping the shotgun in two hands, like he was pretty sure he should. Robin then reached for the sidearm at her hip, and turned briefly to take a few shots. She hit one of them twice in the torso, staggering him for a moment, and another in the head, causing it to drop violently to the ground. After a few more seconds of running they came to the wall of rubble that surrounded them, Damian cursing himself mentally for his handiwork. They turned around, backs to the wall and took aim at their pursuers, looking over at one another briefly and giving a fearful but determined nod. They began firing at the now bigger group of creatures, Robin causing the most damage, and Damian...trying his best.

"God...fucking...Wormbies" Damian shouted to no one in particular as the group, began to close in on them.

They began to re-position themselves to be closer together as the creatures beset them on all sides. They bumped into one another as the space between them reached it's limit. They both heard a gut wrenching click, signifying that their weapons were out of ammunition. Reloading would take too long now, they were so close. Robin turned to Damian, who was still trying desperately to fend off the "Wormbies" with the light from the shotgun. It proved to have minimal effect, as the remaining dozen or so closed in on them. Damian finally returned Robin's look, she looked like she wanted to say something.

"Damian I-" Robin began, but was cut off by a loud cracking sound.

There were sparks briefly in between them and the Wormbies, and then a strange blue-ish green smoke arose from the area of the sparks. In a moment all was engulfed in the strange smoke, and the creatures could be heard screeching and thrashing about in anguish. Confused, Damian and Robin tried to breathe as little of the smoke as possible, though it smelled vaguely of incense and oddly enough, oranges.

"Climb now tall-kin" a mysterious high pitched voice called out from above, "Mighty fast now, Chak smells many more Crawly-Kin on the way"

Confused as they were, they took the advice and began the climb, eventually climbing out of the smoke and to the tom pf the rubble pile. They could see some lights scattered about in the distance, presumably from cars that didn't completely die after the fall.

"Ah, tall-kin," the voice spoke up again, "Over here, Chak take you to safe place, mighty good clan-home for Chak's tribe"

They shone the light around to locate the source of the voice which they did pretty quickly.

565465

"With haste tall-kin!" the small creature shouted, leading them down the other side of the rubble.
 
Murphy had taken his time and inspected the inside of the plane, finding nothing obviously useful for their situation, with the exception of a few emergency kits containing medical supplies and flashlights. The flashlights were especially handy, as he could now more easily see down into the darkness below, at the end of the slide. A few people on bored the plane were busy working away at various panels and the chairs with various tools, in hopes of finding some kind of shaft or something that could lead them to the cargo section of the plane.

Keenan doubted movie logic was going to help too much here. He was pretty sure, though he could be wrong, that you could really only access that area from outside the plane. It made sense to him at least. He was no engineer but he figured it would be easier to keep pressure in the cabin that way or something.

He turned his attention out the door, and shined his light down, causing some of the things to recoil a bit. he tried moving his flashlights to others and found a similar effect. they, apparently, didn't like the light. As he watched them more closely he could see that the creatures actually didn't seem to have too much trouble running up the slide after all, due to apparent mutations or appendages on their bodies.

The trouble, he deduced, was the lights in the plane. they would begin running up the slide while it was dark, afraid of the light, and recoil when the light blinked back on, falling back down the slide and into each other.

It didn't really seem to be hurting them in any way though, just startling or scaring them. It was strange, they seemed like the product of some zombie movie, but he could tell that they were self aware. He could see them thinking and trying to tackle the situation from different angles. he could read the emotions on their faces.

They might not be human anymore, or maybe at all to begin with, but they weren't mindless or animals.

This didn't sit well with him. If they were intelligent, and the light wasn't hurting them, eventually some of them might get brave. They were fish in a barrel, and he was looking out the little knot hole, ready to wriggle out. Problem was, he couldn't figure a way around the fisherman.

Just as his light fell on a nearby building, he could hear a commotion behind him. He turned quickly to see that one of the passengers had began to seize, possibly due to the flashing lights that were still plaguing his headache. He could see and hear one of the passengers asking the captain if they could turn them off. He stumbled quickly through a few passengers to interrupt.

"Hey, no, that's a bad idea." He interjected.

"My sister is epileptic, she can't handle the flashing lights." He said, understandably annoyed at Murphy's interruption.

"Uh, maybe you can toss a blanket over her head or something, but those monsters out there are afraid of the light. It's why they keep falling down the slide."

"Shit." The captains face paled. It's not that he didn't already understand how fucked they were, it was more that their perceived inability to climb the slide itself was really all he was clinging to for any feeling of confidence.

"Shit..." He repeated. The man continued to argue for his sister's sake, but the captain shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I have to think of the rest of the passengers as well. Just do what you can and try covering her eyes or her head..."

The man didn't like his answer, but he also, like many of the passengers, didn't understand how a plane's lights work. or at least he assumed they were something abnormal compared to a household switch.

As he turned around, before Murphy could return to his 'post', another outburst of violence exploded from the crowd as two of the passengers began attacking others. One of the victims being the poor seizing woman.

"Gale!" Her brother cried, running forward to try to pull the man free.

Murphy pointed his gun and fired at both of the assailants, one shot for each, which should have put them down. It didn't.

"Shiiiiiiit!"

Murphy grabbed a food tray with both hands and ran forward, using it as a barrier between him and others as he pushed his way through the group and toward one of the attackers, like a make shift riot shield, he forced the assailant, and a few others out the door, shoving and kicking them until they tumbled down the slide.

Tossing the tray out of the plane , for fear of contamination. He then reached overhead to the baggage, detached a strap from a duffel bag, wrapped it around the other man's neck and jerked him as hard as he could toward the exit, releasing his grip in order to throw him out of the plane as well, and nearly sending the seizing woman's brother out the door with him.

Murphy looked over the increasingly frightened occupants of the plane and wondered how long he could keep up this action hero style take over. On the one hand, if he was too soft on them he could exacerbate the already accelerating problem, but on the other hand if he continued this streak of violence, necessary or not... He'd have a whole new problem.

"I'm sorry everyone, I know this whole thing is a big pile of shit... We just need to stick together the best we can alright?" He considered trying to find out who else might be infected, and definately wasn't comfortable with the mauled seizure lady at this point, or her now injured brother, but based on how things had just played out, he might have some time.

"Captain, a word?" He huffed as he leaned against the plane door again, this time careful of any worms that may be lurking on the flooring.

It seemed he was safe in that regard.

"Yeah?" the captain asked cautiously.

"I don't like being the only guy with a gun right now, or making the hard calls. I've just about got this figured out but I need you to boost morale somehow. It's that, or we're not going to make it."


"You mean there's a way out of this?" The captain asked, reluctant to be hopeful.

"Might be, but I need you to make sure people calm the fuck down and don't toss me out the plane. I also need you to see if anyone else got worms in them when that thing grabbed that fellow a bit ago. Can you do that?"

The captain nodded. "I can try." He said.

Murphy shook his head and shined his light back out of the plane, avoiding the screaming bodies he had just flung from the aircraft.

It took him a moment to pick his original train of thought back up, but once he did he noticed a building not too far away. He also noticed the plane had been sitting at an angle. It was possible, theoretically, that if they worked together they might be able to shake the plane enough for it to slide free of where it currently was, which could put them in a better situation.

Well, at least worth the risk since almost any situation was better than this.

Just then, gunshots rung in the distance.

We're not the only ones down here? Poor bastards.
Murphy thought, but then he noticed that many of the creatures, though not all, had thier attention drawn to the fire, and sprinted off toward where they seemed to think it came from.

"OK, we have to move now." Murphy decided aloud.

"But you said-" The captain started

"Fuck that, I need all of you to help me rock the plane, then when it starts moving grab onto something and hope you don't get hurt. It's that or these things fucking eat us."

The other passengers murmured as they still weren't sure what to think.

"NOW!" Murphy shouted, running into a position of his own and trying to demonstrate what was needed.

It took a few moments, but the passengers, with the exception of children and their parents, who were more concerned about making sure their kids were safe, joined in, and the plane slipped free.

A distinctly different shaking feeling than when the plane had plummeted straight down, before 'landing' at it's strange angle on the imperfect surface below them, aggravated Murphy's head and neck pain even more, ending with an abrupt and jerky stop, and flip of the plane.

The lights went out.

Murphy climbed across the floor of the plane, using the chairs to keep himself up, as the plane wasn't fully on its side, but was at a strange enough angle to require such efforts when moving toward the door.

As he looked out he noticed a few things. The first was that the horde of monsters, or group anyway, hadn't yet caught up with the plane. They were currently running toward it from the hilltop they had been perched on, but there was some distance still between them. Second, the slide ramp had partially broken off, which meant they would have to jump. Thirdly, and most importantly, one of the buildings he had noticed in the distance was now much closer to the plane, and at a distance that, though painful, should be safe to jump.

"Alright, parents with kids follow me, the rest of you follow after. Keep moving fast and pay attention, if you fall behind that's your problem."
He figured some of them would elect to stay, and maybe wait for a rescue, since there seemed to be no obvious access point to the door now, but elected not to bother mentioning how stupid he felt that was. If they couldn't figure it out it was their own fault, and he really wasn't sure he had time for a speech.

Murphy attempted to run the best that he could down the slide portion and out the door, jumping quickly to the side and off the ramp toward a building, awkwardly.

Luckily he didn't miss, at least not entirely. He felt a sharp pain in his ribs as his upper body slammed against the outside edge of the roof, and hooked his arms quickly to hug the other side of the raised edge, in order to keep himself in place. His feet scrambled against the wall in an attempt to push him onto the roof, as he slowly inched his way forward toward it, until a couple of the men who had more successfully made the jump helped pull him up.

"Thanks boys." He huffed.

Looking toward the group of monsters, he could see they were about half way to the plane now at this point. He also noticed that the adults were tossing the children from the plane to the group who had made it to the roof, which in retrospect was probably a lot smarter than expecting them to make that sliding jump.

Good for them. He thought momentarily before searching the roof for an access point.

There was a roof access from the building, and a fire escape. Another tough call.

"This is gonna sound shitty but I think about half of us should take the fire escape and about half should take the roof exit. I think statistically that'll give at least half of us the best chance. Don't ask me what to do after, I'm just playing this by ear."

Murphy handed the gun to a woman who was holding a child, and began trying to open the door. It seemed to open just fine.

"Now." he urged them. They began making their choices, with the exception of those still trying to disembark the plane, and Murphy followed the group who had gone down the fire escape. With any luck, between the plane and the nearby building it would give him enough time to hide somewhere.

It wasn't that he didn't care about the kids or the other passengers, but he knew he couldn't really help them. He could maybe help a couple, if they stayed close and listened to him, but he doubted circumstances would allow that. What he needed to focus on was surviving what was happening now. He could help others later if things worked out.

Descending the fire escape, rather than running away, he darted to the next closest building. There was an old gas station, fairly small, not very secure, that he decided might work. He stepped quickly into the now broken glass wall and headed toward where he thought the back room or manager's office might be. He found it.

It was locked of course, but Keenan was no stranger to breaking and entering. He unlocked it as quickly as he could, shut the door quickly behind him, and then vomited from the smell. There was a corpse in here. A man who had apparently shot himself.

He sighed and began getting to work making the room a little more secure, sitting as quietly as he possibly could for the time being.
 

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