jl8e

LJ's had their password DB stolen

jlighton — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 15:32:56 GMT

(Making an exception to my abandonment of LJ, just in case anyone affected is seeing this but not my DW.)

I just got a scam email informing me that my email account had been hacked, they’d taken over my computer, and had compromising websites I’d visited and pictures taken with my computer’s webcam.

Which they don’t.

To prove it, they told me the password to my email account.

Which it wasn’t.

I recognized it as the password for my LJ, which I’d typed in enough times over the years to remember.

So, LJ’s had their password DB stolen, and either they were storing the passwords in plain text, or their hashing algorithm is weak enough that even moderately strong passwords can be extracted. (Probably the latter; DW sent out a message to their users two weeks ago warning about these scam emails, and saying they didn’t believe the compromise was their system, and blaming an unnamed social networking site, which is totally LiveJournal. I only got the scam email today, which suggests that they didn’t have my password for the original wave.)

So, if you still have an LJ account, change the password. If you reused the password anywhere else, change those first.

And use a password manager, and have it generate passwords for you. Human-memorable passwords are simply not secure enough, and my password was not what most people would consider “human memorable.”

(Schemes like diceware and correct horse battery staple are probably still usable, but even with those, how many can you remember?)

Joining the exodus

jlighton — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 20:47:05 GMT

I’ve set up jl8e.dreamwidth.org, and am currently importing my LJ.

I’m not planning to delete this, as there are things here (mostly the Shadowfist fiction) that people may be keeping links to, but I won’t be crossposting to here. (And I post so often.)

If you think I should have friended you on DW, but I haven’t, let me know.

Cheese Muffins

jlighton — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 20:30:56 GMT

So, I currently seem to be using this LJ as a place to put recipes when asked for them.

Hardware:

Muffin tins

Cooling rack

Two mixing bowls

Spatula

Whisk

Non-stick baking spray

A disher or similar tool (optional, but handy) a #20 is probably the right size — my #16 is somewhat too big

Software:

Dry goods

175g (1.5 cups) AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp paprika

3.5 oz shredded cheddar cheese

Wet goods

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk (original recipe calls for regular milk, so that should be fine)

1 tsp dried thyme

Heat oven to 375.

Prepare the muffin tin with non-stick spray. (Depending on your muffin tin, you may be able to skip this.)

Whisk the dry goods, except for the cheese, together.

Add the cheese a little at a time, whisking each addition until it’s reasonably well separated and covered in flout. (If you add it all at once, it sticks to itself and clumps.)

Melt the butter, and let it cool slightly.

Whisk the wet goods together.

Once combined, pour them onto the dry goods, then mix with the spatula until the flour is no longer visible as a powder. This takes a while, and you’ll probably wonder if there’s enough liquid in there for it to happen, but there is. (Adding a bit more dairy would probably make this easier.)

It’ll be a very thick, lumpy batter, and that’s fine. Scoop it into the muffin tins. The recipe this started from says it makes 9; I consistently end up with 11.

Bake for 25 minutes. The muffins will be firm, and somewhat browned at the edges. I’m sure a toothpick inserted in the bottom will come out clean, but I’ve never felt the need to test.

Remove from pan, let sit on the cooling rack for about 5 minutes, then serve warm.

Leftovers can be microwaved for about 15-20 seconds to reheat. Bulk leftovers reheated nicely in an oven (probably around 350) for 5 minutes.

Cookie!

jlighton — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 05:55:52 GMT

I was asked for a recipe link over on FB when I posted a photo. This requires having a recipe to link to.

The way I do things is that I have a generic cookie base, and I mess around with the stuff that goes into the it.

(Slightly adapted from Joy of Cooking; the edition that tells you useful things like how to skin a squirrel.)

Heat the oven to 375

Hardware:

Cookie sheets/half sheet pans

Cooling racks

Parchment paper

Hand or stand mixer

Software:

160g all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/8 tsp baking powder

1 stick room-temperature butter (Most of the time I’ve had problems, it was probably because I didn’t let the butter warm up sufficiently. Cutting it up into smaller chunks helps.)

105g white sugar

100g light brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract (or other extract)

1 cup bits (canonically, chocolate chips)

Line a sheet pan with parchment. A spray of non-stick spray on a couple of the pan corners will help stick it down if you need to.

Whisk the dry goods together.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and extract.

Add the dry goods a third at a time, mixing each dose in before adding the next. You may need to stop to scrape down the sides.

Mix in the bits.

Use a couple of spoons to put little blobs of dough on the parchment. I like small cookies, and can get 24 per pan without trouble. If you want larger cookies, you’re allowed, but you’re on your own as to cooking time. A disher might make the job easier if you’re going for larger cookies.

Bake for 9:00-9:30 minutes. As soon as you pull a sheet out of the oven, slide the parchment onto a cooling rack. While each pan is in the oven, you should have enough time to prep the next one. If you want to reuse the parchment, the cookies will have enough structural integrity to move in about a minute. (I usually have three sheet pans and two pieces of parchment in rotation. When I tried doing it with two pans, they were too hot, and the fat started melting while I was loading the pan.)

Makes rather a lot of cookies. (How many depends a lot on exactly how big you’re making them, but "on the order of 150" is a safe bet for me.)

Edit: And, of course, not long after posting this, I got a better recipe. 152 g flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, no baking powder, 87g brown sugar, 68 g white sugar. Bake in the top third of the oven, for 8-11 minutes. (8-8:30 for the tiny cookies I tend to make.) Otherwise, as above.

The variation that prompted the question: Orange-Pineapple — the bits are dried pineapple and dried mandarin orange, chopped small. (About 2/3 pineapple, 1/3 orange.) You can get the orange at Trader Joe’s. The extract is orange.

Chocolate base: 140g flour, 20g cocoa powder. You may need to add a tsp of milk, buttermilk, or other liquid along with the egg and extract.

Chocolate-ginger: Chocolate base. No extract. Add three tsp ground ginger to the dry goods. Bits are half chocolate chips, half candied ginger, chopped small. (I like Trader Joe’s uncrystallized candied ginger for this.)

Pomegranate: leave out about 15g white sugar. Add about 15g pomegranate molasses along with the egg. (No extract.) Bits are pomegranate seeds or a mix of seeds and chocolate chips. This dough is somewhat softer due to the extra liquid.

For lots of science about adjusting the recipie for various factors, see Good Eats.

Dominion tournament card sets

jlighton — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 16:54:42 GMT

Here are the card sets from this year's Dominion tournament at Dexcon. (Which I won.) I'm interested in how other people would have played them. (I didn't record the kingdom in the qualifying round, but could probably recall most of it if anybody cares; it was all-Intrigue. (Great Hall?, Masquerade, Shanty Town, Wishing Well, Bridge, Coppersmith, Duke, Torturer, Tribute, Harem.))

They were not fully random; the organizers at least filtered them for interestingness, and I believe the finals set was actually constructed, or at least adjusted from a random set.

Card texts behind a cut, because some of you don't care.

All games are four players.

I'll explain how I played and why in the comments, if anybody wants me to.

Semifinals:

Lighthouse
Action – Duration
$2
+1 Action
Now and at the start of your next turn: +$1.
While this is in play, when another player plays an Attack card, it doesn’t affect you.

Ambassador
Action – Attack
$3
Reveal a card from your hand. Return up to 2 copies of it from your hand to the Supply. Then each other player gains a copy of it.

Great Hall
Action – Victory
$3
1 Victory Point
+1 Card; +1 Action.

Smugglers
Action
$3
Gain a copy of a card costing up to $6 that the player to your right gained on his last turn.

Baron
Action
$4
+1 Buy
You may discard an Estate card. If you do, +$4. Otherwise, gain an Estate card.

Mining Village
Action
$4
+1 Card; +2 Actions
You may trash this card immediately. If you do, +$2.

Island
Action – Victory
$4
Set aside this and another card from your hand. Return them to your deck at the end of the game.
Worth 2 Victory Points

Torturer
Action – Attack $5
+3 Cards
Each other player chooses one: he discards 2 cards; or he gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand.

Wharf
Action – Duration
$5
Now and at the start of your next turn: +2 Cards; +1 Buy.

Nobles
Action – Victory
$6
2 Victory Points
Choose one: +3 Cards; or +2 Actions.

How do you plan to play on a 3-4 start? How about a 5-2?

If the first player buys a Torturer, does this affect your plan?

(I had a 5-2 in fourth seat.)

Finals:

Interestingly, there were three cards in common with last year's finals. (Tunnel, Margrave, and Spice Merchant.)

Colony and Platinum were in the game

Herbalist
Action
$2
+1 Buy; +$1
When you discard this from play, you may put one of your Treasures from play on top of your deck.

Fortune Teller
Action – Attack
$3
+$2
Each other player reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals a Victory or Curse card. He puts it on top and discards the other revealed cards.

Tunnel
Victory – Reaction
$3
2 Victory Points

When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, gain a Gold.

Watchtower
Action – Reaction
$3
Draw until you have 6 cards in hand.
When you gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, either trash that card, or put it on top of your deck.

Horse Traders
Action – Reaction
$4
+1 Buy; +$3; Discard 2 cards.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, +1 Card and return this to your hand.

Spice Merchant
Action
$4
You may trash a Treasure from your hand. If you do, choose one:
+2 Cards and +1 Action;
or +$2 and +1 Buy.

Festival
Action
$5
+2 Actions, +1 Buy; +$2.

Margrave
Action – Attack
$5
+3 Cards; +1 Buy
Each other player draws a card, then discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Goons
Action – Attack
$6
+1 Buy; +$2
Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, +1 VP token.

Expand
Action
$7
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.

Once again, how do you plan to play on a 3-4 or a 5-2?

(I had a 3-4, and went first.)

I am a humungous geek

jlighton — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 05:46:26 GMT

...but I still have to bow before this guy's skills:

How to implement a Turing Machine in Magic the Gathering.

(I don't think it's possible to do the same in Shadowfist -- no way to implement the tape, either in play or in the stack.)

For the Dominion players out there

jlighton — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 21:16:02 GMT

Here's the setup for the finals of the Dexcon tournament.

How would you plan to play them with a 3-4 money split?

(And yes, there's inevitably some things you do to react to your opponents and your actual draws. I'm just looking for general plans.)

The board was made from Intrigue and Hinterlands only:

2-cost:

Courtyard (Action):
+3 Cards
Put a card from your hand on top of your deck.

3-cost:

Masquerade (Action):
+2 Cards
Each player passes a card in their hand to the player on their left. You may trash a card from your hand.
Tunnel (Victory/Reaction):
2 Victory Points
When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, gain a Gold.

4-cost:

Mining Village (Action):
+1 Card; +2 Actions
You may trash this card immediately. If you do, +$2.
Spice Merchant (Action):
You may trash a Treasure from your hand. If you do, choose one:
+2 Cards and +1 Action;
or +$2 and +1 Buy.

5-cost:

Torturer (Action - Attack):
+3 Cards
Each other player chooses one: he discards 2 cards; or he gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand.
Trading Post (Action):
Trash 2 cards from your hand. If you do, gain a silver card; put it into your hand.
Embassy (Action):
+5 Cards
Discard 3 cards.
When you gain this, each other player gains a Silver.
Highway (Action):
+1 Card; +1 Action
While this is in play, cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0.
Margrave (Action - Attack):
+3 Cards; +1 Buy
Each other player draws a card, then discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Bonus points if you can guess which one of these ten cards was never bought by anybody at the table.

Favorite songs

jlighton — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:57:21 GMT

A while back, I decided to go through my music collection and make a playlist of my top ten favorite songs, with only one song from each artist.

These are the songs I decided were my absolute favorites at the time I made the list. Some of them could be replaced with other songs, likely by the same artist. Odds are that if I made the list today, it'd be similar.

Because I feel like it, I'm sharing them with the world. (Or at least the small subset that reads my LJ.)

In no particular order:

Savatage - When the Crowds Are Gone

Dio - Rainbow in the Dark

There was a music video, but I couldn't find it on YouTube.

(But I did find Ronnie James Dio's cover of Dream On.)

Tom Waits - Hold On

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

The Beatles - Rain

Garbage - Fix Me Now

Killing Joke - Pandemonium

(There was a video, but I could only find a somewhat crappy copy.)

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

Suicidal Tendencies - How Will I Laugh Tomorrow

Iron Maiden - Powerslave

(OK, so I couldn't manage to trim it down to 10.)

The White Stripes - The Denial Twist

(Could easily have been a different song.)

The Who - Behind Blue Eyes

Metallica - Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

Queen and David Bowie - Under Pressure

(If I hadn't counted this as the Queen song, this would probably be on the list.

The New Pornographers - All the Old Showstoppers

(Couldn't find the studio version on YouTube. This was the best live version I found.)

Savatage - Chance

(I didn't manage to stick to one song per band, either. Here's a live version by Trans-Siberian Orchestra and we can pretend I did. :)

A farewell to Magic

jlighton — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:56:39 GMT

I'm selling off my Magic cards next week, (I have about 10,000 cards by my rough estimates), and the process of sorting all my cards left me feeling somewhat nostalgic.

I played for about ten years, from Beta in 1993 to Scourge in 2003. For the last couple of years, I was only playing in prerelease tournaments, due to the combination of the decline of the regular Sunday tournament at my local store and the fact that I wasn't buying many cards any more made it hard to stay competitive. I was also working on Shadowfist at the time, which required the same sort of mental energy that Magic does.

I don't regret the time or money I spent. (It's even possible I'll make a profit selling my cards, but I doubt it, and can't really tell anyway.) I had fun. I was good, but not great. The fact that I was never spending that much money on cards and refused to buy singles made me an eccentric deckbuilder, never playing the standard archetypes of the time. I like to think that if I'd gotten serious about it, I could've competed at high levels. That might've happened if I'd stayed in Pittsburgh, where I was friends with somebody who later became a regular on the pro tour. Then again, it might not have; I wasn't that active a player back then, and didn't play Magic with Erik much.

Most importantly, if I hadn't played Magic, I'd likely never have played Shadowfist, and that would have been a huge change. Through Fist, I met mneme, and through him, directly or indirectly, I met most of the people on my friends list here.

I'd seen reference to Magic before it came out, but my reaction was "what a sleazy marketing scheme. No way I'm going to play that..."

However, my friend Eeyore had picked up a deck and a couple of boosters, and convinced me to play (not that hard, really). We split his cards in half, and played a game. Then the mind-control drugs on the cards kicked in. (Incidentally, this is probably the only time I've ever handled a Black Lotus. Almost certainly the only time I played with one.)

I'd been at GenCon that year, where the game first came out. Supposedly, the game was everywhere, with people playing it all over the convention center wherever they could find the space. I don't remember seeing it at all.

My favorite card ever is probably Zur's Weirding. I built a number of decks around it over the years. It does a bunch of things that I generally enjoy: it forces the game out of its normal mode, it creates complicated situations that have to be evaluated on the fly (which is probably my biggest strength as a gamer), it lets agressive decks convert an early advantage into a win, and it makes combo decks cry.

When I was sorting my cards, I took apart the remains of some of the decks I'd played over the years. (I'd stop playing them when sets rotated out of the format, so many of the cards would no longer be legal, and I might as well leave the deck together.)

The type 2 format used to allow the most recent N sets, with old sets rotating out as new ones were released. Around the release of Weatherlight, they changed it so that sets moved in and out in blocks, where a block was a standalone set and the two expansions that followed it. This allowed Ice Age back into the format, and meant that Buried Alive and Ashen Ghoul were now in the format together. With Nether Shadow also available, the core of a deck was obvious. My particular version was black with some red, and Death Spark and Krovikan Horror filling out the graveyard engine. IIRC, this was the only time I bought singles, shelling out a couple of bucks for some Horrors and Death Sporks.

Another favorite was Turbo-Orgg. This was the era when naming a deck Turbo-whatever automatically made it a good deck. Also, the potential first two turns of mountain, Mana Vault, mountain, 6/6 trampler is pretty fast. The rest of the deck was blue/red, with other aggressive creatures, plus countermagic and Zur's Weirding. I honestly don't remember whether it pre- or postdates the Buried Alive deck. I remember it using Force of Will and Arcane Denial for countermagic, so it had to include the Ice Age block, but I also remember that it contained Weatherlight cards, which suggests it came after Ice Age rotated out and killed the Buried Alive deck. They may have been contemporaries, but I usually didn't keep many live decks at one time. I may also be crossing the countermagic used with a different Zur's Weirding deck.

Later, when the format was Tempest and Urza's block, I played Oath of Spikes. Tempest block had a bunch of "Spike" creatures, that existed as +1/+1 counters that they could move around to other creatures. Add Oath of Ghouls, and you have a base that can drop critters, move their counters to other critters, bring them back to hand, and do it again. Add Elven Rite for more counters, Survival of the Fittest(when I managed to trade for some) for supercharged graveyard filling, and Mulch for land draw and graveyard filling, and there was a deck there. I think I actually first built it after Exodus came out, late in the Tempest+Mirage blocks Type 2, because it suffered badly in the combo-heavy Urza's block environment. (All things considered, Urza's block was probably the first nail in the coffin of my Magic habit.)

I made other decks over the years, but those are the only ones I really remember well ten+ years after the fact.

In retrospect...

jlighton — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:36:25 GMT

...helping them move a body would have been far easier.

Critical Shift: Aftermath

jlighton — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:00:46 GMT

And here we are at the end of my Shadowfist fiction, about 47,000 words total, 17,000 of which are the CS story. I don't plan to write any more of it, or at least that's what I'm telling myself. (The fact that I left a seed for the Empire of Evil story should be ignored.)

I'm posting this now because it's short -- it could've been left in the last full chapter, but I think it works better as an epilogue.

Curtis Boatman felt something damp sliding down his face. He painfully opened his eyes.

He saw a pair of boots. He slowly turned his head, revealing a stained white lab coat, a gun that looked cobbled together out of spare parts pointing directly at him, and finally a woman's face, one that he hadn't seen in a very long time.

"How the mighty have fallen," she said. "Karma's a bitch, isn't it, Curtis?"

"Anita," he muttered.

"You remember me? I'm shocked." Anita Dao glared down at him. "I should just kill you right now."

The gun looked like junk, but he had no doubt it worked extremely well. After all, this was the mind that had invented Arcanotechnology.

She sighed. "Ten years ago, you wouldn't even have had a chance to wake up. These days, I have bigger problems."

She gestured to somebody he couldn't see. He felt himself being lifted by the arms.

"Bring him," she said, "Try not to kill him, but don't worry about being gentle. We'll figure out what to do with him later."

Critical Shift: Apocalypse

jlighton — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:52:18 GMT

This chapter of CS is the third-longest thing I've written for Shadowfist. (Fourth, if you count the OmniFAQ, but that's a very different beast.)

It contains the only scene I knew was going to be in the second half of CS before I started working on it again, and even then, I wasn't completely sure of the exact motivations. (It's the last one.)

Holz's security override opened the door. He put the lights on.

Geoffrey Smythe sat up in his bed. His Paradox Cube seemed to unfold from nowhere to hover by his head. A strange light played across its facets as it rapidly shifted form.

"What do you want?" he snarled.

Holz remained calm. "Boatman wants your ass in the command center now. They've started rolling up your network."

"Impossible." said Smythe.

"Tell him that."

Holz shut the door on Smythe's response and hurried back to the elevator.

He watched Smythe saunter into the command center about fifteen minutes later, acting completely unconcerned. Smythe walked over to where Boatman was talking to a couple of aides, and asked, "What's this about?"

Boatman glared at him. "About time you got here. Three of your active agents have gone missing in the last week. We started keeping watch on the sleepers as best we could, and at least another half-dozen have vanished."

"It must be coincidence. They don't have any means here to detect my arts, and there's no connection between my puppets."

"Except you," said Holz.

"They don't remember me at all."

"Cameras, Smythe," said Holz, "They're everywhere, recording everything. Once they have a couple of your agents, they can go digging until they find you in both their pasts, then start tracking your movements."

"Absurd," said Smythe, "There's no way to sort through that much data so far after the fact." Even he didn't really sound convinced.

"Be that as it may, Geoffrey," Boatman said, in a calm voice, "They are picking up your agents. It doesn't matter how. We must act on the assumption they can. Start pulling the pins. Go for maximum wreckage. Get down to the financial section and keep them up to date. We can short the stocks of their companies, then pick up the pieces later for next to nothing."

Smythe nodded meekly, and hurried out.

Once he was gone, Boatman turned to Holz. "Get your men ready."

The morning's sun was just rising, casting long shadows from the towers of glass and metal and plastic. This was the only time the city was quiet; the frenzy of the night-time having lost its battle with exhaustion while the machinery of the day was only just beginning to grind into motion.

A dozen men and women moved in the shadows, surrounding a small warehouse. The Harbinger watched them from a nearby rooftop. A dark-skinned man stood next to him, the early morning sunlight shining off his metal arms.

Devendra Chalal yawned. He was a night creature, here only because he did not trust the Harbinger. He surveyed the situation.

"Too many monsters inside," he said, "Weak perimeter. This won't go well."

The Harbinger smiled, and did not respond. Below, his disciples produced fire bombs. Acting as one, they hurled them at the building. A second wave followed immediately, crashing through the windows.

The building's fire-prevention systems were swiftly overwhelmed, and it became a blazing torch, briefly threatening to outshine the rising sun.

Heedless of the flames, they moved closer, taking positions by the exits. When the first men burst through those doors, they were cut down before they could take more than two steps.

They heard the inhuman howling first. A creature, half again as high as a man and engulfed in flame, burst through a wall. It roared and thrashed wildly. The Harbinger's students moved calmly to encircle it. They used their blades to corral it, pushing it back when it attempted to rush one side of the circle or another. They did not need to press the attack; the flame would do the work for them. The creature's movements became weaker, less directed, and soon it crashed to the ground. One man stepped out of the ring, and smoothly removed the monster's head with his blade.

They watched for half an hour, as the building collapsed inward and the fire began to die down. Nothing else attempted escape.

Chalal turned to the Harbinger. He made a small bow, almost, but not quite, mocking.

"Underestimated you," he said, "Again."

He walked away, leaving the Harbinger to watch the fire burn itself out.

"Won't do it three times," he muttered, almost too low for the Harbinger to hear.

Geoffrey Smythe stopped running, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. He could hear the men around the corner, yelling orders, looking for him.

He ignored the blood oozing down his arm. At his command, his Paradox Cube traced a pattern in the air. The next man to turn that corner would be turned inside-out. If he were lucky.

It wasn't much, but he didn't have the time for anything complex. He turned to run, but the Paradox Cube floated before him, blocking the way. It opened.

"Not now," he snarled, but he shoved his hand into the opening. He felt a brief tugging, then the Cube returned to its normal place at his shoulder.

He inspected the hand. A little blood trickled from the stump where his index finger had been, slowing and stopping even as he watched.

He heard voices getting closer around the corner. He tried to reach out, to cloud their minds, but he couldn't get any purchase.

He ran. Who were they, and where had Boatman got them? They'd been to the Netherworld, otherwise he could have grabbed their minds and worked them like puppets, but it was more than that. They'd trained for this; they knew too much about what he could do and how to avoid it. They'd gone for the Paradox Cube first in the initial ambush, and he'd been lucky it had survived.

He almost reached the next intersection before they turned the corner. A burst of gunfire tore into his arm, and he stumbled, losing his footing.

Then the screaming started. He scrambled around the corner as they were distracted. He had to keep moving. It was only pain; it didn't matter.

The screaming was cut off with a burst of gunfire. That should leave them a lot less eager to chase him, and he was almost there. Past this set of labs was his refuge.

He stumbled in, closing the door behind him. The room smelled faintly of rotten meat, but there was little else that set it apart from any of the other labs. General Gog was remarkably tidy for an abomination.

Gog itself was here, rising from the long table upon which it lay. It sniffed the air. "Smythe," it rumbled, "You are injured."

"Boatman's turned on me," he gasped, "Or maybe just Holz, but he hasn't got the spine to take a piss without Boatman's say-so." He heard the sounds of the soldiers again outside the door. "You have to protect me."

Gog moved toward the door, towering above him. "Why?"

"We had a deal," he said, "I destroyed the thing in your brain, and you'd help me against Boatman when the time came. It's come."

Gog's arm lashed out, impossibly fast. It snatched the Paradox Cube out of the air and started to squeeze.

Smythe's heart felt like it was being squeezed in that massive hand. Reflexively, he backed away. "No, please," he begged.

Gog moved closer, pressing Smythe into the corner. Its voice was a low rumble, barely audible. "And what is it I gain by aiding you?"

"You hate Boatman." Smythe was babbling now. "He enslaved you. You want to kill him. Please stop. You owe me. Please stop. Don't...."

The Paradox Cube shattered with a surprisingly quiet snap. Smythe sank to his knees, weeping. Gog grabbed him by the throat and hauled him back to his feet.

"Yes, I hate him," it hissed. "I hate you all. And he gives me armies, and weapons, and everything I need to kill you by the thousands. His war will be years in the fighting, and through it all, you humans will be dying, at my command, if not by my own hands."

"What can you offer me to compare to that joy?"

The soldiers outside waited for the screaming to stop before returning to Holz to report.

Rei Okamoto sang along to the music she had playing as she set up her kit. The driver turned around and glared at her, unhappy with the noise, but she didn't care. She was back where she belonged.

How long had it been since she'd done something like this? Almost two years ago now, and even that had been a big, organized corporate job. It was almost like she was fourteen again, sitting in the back of a grimy van outside a corp HQ, with two crazy, beautiful, doomed boys up front, waiting on her word, trusting her to work the security systems and keep them alive as they busted in and out again.

The Rei of twelve years ago would barely believe all of this. The kit was the best that could be had, no longer whatever could be stolen and salvaged. The software was tuned and honed sharper than the finest blades they made in orbit, ready to slice through a microsecond of an opening. And the team... the team would have left teenaged Rei slack-jawed in awe.

She smiled. Everything else had changed, but the van still somehow managed to smell of old socks.

She double-checked the system diagnostics, and made a call.

"Ready when you are."

Curtis Boatman was having a good day. His scientists had just confirmed that the remains in Gog's chambers were the all that was left of his biggest problem.

Gog itself was here in the control center, quietly monitoring the military end of things. Holz was at its side. He was still clearly uncomfortable at being subservient to it, but Boatman didn't care how uncomfortable Holz was, as long as he did what he was told.

The financial end was going well, too. Several of the companies on the receiving end of Smythe's sabotage had completely cratered, and Dao Biotech was now buying up the remains. It was still expensive, but their cash reserves could mostly handle it.

An alert popped up in a window before him. A major bank was cutting off their credit and demanding repayment. A second one followed minutes later.

Gog turned to him. "Doctor Boatman. Several subsidiaries are under attack." A window appeared before it. "There are also systematic raids being made on our abomination caches."

Another window. "It would also appear that the financial markets have turned on us."

Boatman scowled, and settled back into his chair. "Well, this is the attack you've been expecting for so long. You have your contingency plans, so set them in motion."

"I already have," it rumbled, "But the attack is larger and more closely coordinated than expected. I believe we can hold at the physical level, but the financial one is more questionable, since we are deeply overextended on that front already."

It consulted several other windows. "I also expect an electronic assault to accompany these, but there is none as yet."

Boatman felt a sudden burning pain in the side of his neck. All the lights in the room flickered, and the holographic displays dissolved into multicolored static for a second.

"What was that?" he yelled, rubbing his neck.

Holz was already in motion, stationing guards on all the entrances, and sending runners to bring reinforcements. "Micro-EMP bomb," he said, as he pulled his Helix Ripper out of a locker. He paused.

"Just the one? That doesn't make sense." He returned to his station, where he started looking at the floating windows. "One won't do anything."

The doors opened, and another half-dozen soldiers and three abominations entered, taking positions near the entrances.

After several tense minutes, one of the staff spoke: "Doctor Boatman? We seem to have lost all the security and internal comm systems." She poked at her system some more. "I think they're still running, but we can't access them."

Holz's comm unit rang. He answered it, and had a brief conversation. "That's one of my men on the second floor. Smart kid. Couldn't raise me on normal channels, so thought to call. He hears gunfire from the main entrance area."

Holz settled down at his station, calling his unit commanders one by one. Boatman paced nervously. He walked over to a weapons locker and retrieved a pistol, then resumed his pacing.

Several minutes later, his own comm unit rang. He looked at it, then scrambled to answer.

"What a pleasant surprise, my dear." he said, "However, I'm afraid I can't talk right now. My company is under attack."

As he was talking, the main elevator doors slid open.

"I know," said Xu Mei as she stepped into the room.

Dimitri Lyapunov leaned back in the chair, his feet on the desk. He watched Yue pace back and forth restlessly. In that skintight black outfit, she reminded him of a panther.

They were waiting for the Triad's computer jockey to do his work. Getting into Dao Medical Electronics had been easy, but now they were stuck here waiting. Dimitri was getting bored.

Yue wasn't too happy, either. "What's taking so long?" she snapped.

The tech looked up. "I told you already. As soon as we busted in, they wiped all the file indices. I'm searching by hand, and that takes time. If you want to cut out with nothing to show for it, just say so."

"No," said Yue, "Keep looking." She kept pacing while checking in with her team for status reports.

Fifteen minutes passed. The tech looked up. "Just found the financial codes. Their funds are being transferred, and I think I've got a lead on their research projects now. Are we done, or should I keep digging?"

Yue gave Dimitri a glance. He shrugged. "Keep digging," she said.

Another ten minutes passed. Yue was checking on her team more often as the time went by.

"I've got something," The tech started typing faster, popping up more screens of data. "Let's see what they're playing with."

"Just copy it and we can go," said Yue.

"Not that easy," he replied, "If we don't check it, it could be a decoy, or stuff too old to care about. Let me just... Oh fuck."

He was pale. Yue and Dimitri were instantly alert. "What?"

The tech took a deep breath. "Nanotech. They're making nanotech. The stuff that's been breaking out on the streets," he popped up more displays, "and they've got worse ready to use. They could make everywhere as dead as North America." He looked at Yue for instructions, but she looked as stunned as he was.

"Shit," she said. She repeated the word like a mantra.

She took a deep breath. "We have to get the word out," she said, thinking out loud, "Now. Broadcast it to all the major corps. Hell, might as well tell the bigger governments, too."

The tech was white. "If I do that," he said, "They'll glaze over everywhere involved, including here."

"We have to take the risk," said Yue. "If they think we might have taken the data, they'll glaze the entire Triad. We go public, and we tell everybody. We show that our hands are clean."

"They won't nuke a major population center for anything short of an outbreak," said Dimitri. "We have time. Even quarantine will take a little bit to set up."

"Right," said Yue, "but we're still gone now. Is the data sent?"

The tech nodded. Yue started calling her team. Nobody responded.

The door exploded. Yue and Dimitri dived to the floor. The tech was not so quick. The first burst of fire cut him to shreds.

The security men outside were not eager to press the attack. "You don't have to die," one of them yelled, "Surrender and we can all get out of here alive."

Dimitri's and Yue's eyes met. She smiled and nodded.

Dimitri stood. As he did, a dozen remote units rose from various spots in the room, micromissiles firing through the doorway.

Yue vaulted over the desk, a knife in each hand, following in the wake of the missiles.

Dimitri was right behind her.

The two guards at the elevator were far too slow. Xu Mei's right arm was a silver blur, the long blade extending from it only visible after it had removed one guard's head.

The other one almost had his gun raised by the time she twisted it out of his grasp and smashed the butt into his mouth, dropping it as he crumpled.

She looked at Boatman and smiled, the left side of her mouth twitching upward slightly. He turned and ran.

Behind him, he could hear the guards firing, and the snarls and howls of the abominations. As he made it through the far door, some of the howls turned to shrieks of pain. He slammed the door behind him and looked frantically around for anything to block it.

Finding nothing, he kept running. He made it to the auxiliary elevator. Once inside, with the doors safely closed, he paused to catch his breath. He dropped his comm pad -- too much chance it could be tracked.

With his gun, he pushed the access hatch in the roof open. He shoved the gun back into his belt and leapt, managing to catch the edge and haul himself partially up. "Main floor," he said, then scrambled up onto the elevator's roof.

As it started its ascent, he kicked the hatch closed, and looked around desperately. A quick leap to the ladder, and he pressed himself as flat against it as he could as the elevator scraped past him, shredding the back of his suit jacket as it went.

Once the elevator was receding above him, he scrambled down the ladder. It was only three floors down to the upper lab level, but it felt like miles.

Once there, he forced the door open, and started sprinting through the halls.

Xu Mei's voice came from the PA system. "You can't get away that easily, Curtis. That trick with the elevator only bought you a few minutes."

He stopped at the door to one lab. The abominations inside were there for minor repairs. It was only a couple of minutes' work to wake them and order them to protect him.

With a bodyguard, he now had the time to plan. The lower labs were not on the main security systems, and were well-stocked with abominations and Arcanotech. There, he would have the advantage.

He opened the door and stepped out. Xu Mei's kick knocked him three meters down the hallway, then the abominations were on her.

He slowly pulled himself to his feet, watching the fight as he did. He had to admit, she was a beautiful sight to see, almost a perfect killing machine.

Such a waste. He carefully aimed his gun as one of the larger abominations pushed her back against the wall, limiting her movement. It was badly injured, but too tough to die quickly. All it had to do was keep her there a bit longer.

He carefully centered her head in the sights and fired.

She drove her right fist into the abomination's throat, impaling it upon the blade. Her left hand snatched at the air.

Had he missed? She opened her hand again. Something small and metal sparkled in the light as it fell to the floor.

Then her hand dropped to her belt and snapped toward him. The gun jerked, and Boatman looked dumbly at the throwing knife embedded in its body, the barrel cleanly cut in half along its length.

He scrambled away, dropping the useless gun. A second knife slashed across his thigh. He didn't think it had hit anything major, but there was certainly a lot of blood.

He had to make it to the lab. He could get a Helix Ripper there. She couldn't catch that.

He threw open the door to the access stairs, and half-ran, half-fell down them, leaving a trail of blood behind.

The van shook. Rei looked up, startled. The driver was crouched down, his gun out.

"Get down!" he yelled. Some kind of energy beam splashed against the window. A spray of bullets had no such trouble with the armored door, punching through both it and him.

As the driver choked and gurgled, drowning on his own blood, Rei threw herself flat on the floor. Another burst of bullets punched through the van where she had been, hitting nothing but computers.

She scrambled along the floor for her jump bag and a small computer. It wasn't much -- a backup to the backups, but it was enough to run the show from if she had to.

Once she was connected, she hooked into the van's camera feed to get a look around.

It didn't look good. A squad of Dao Biotech security had got the drop on them. Her security detail were pinned down behind cover; they were fighting back, but were slowly getting picked apart.

Rei double-checked on Xu Mei; everything was going fine inside.

She needed a weapon. She tapped into public traffic-monitoring, found a nearby bus. A half-minute of poking got her into its telemetry systems. Another minute and she'd fully escalated her privileges.

She spoke over the bus's PA: "I'm sorry. Hit the floor and hang on tight," then she took over, programmed a new course, and maxxed out the accelerator.

The first corner was a bit close; that parked car would never be the same again. After that, it was pretty much a straight route. She reflexively erased all the logs; no reason to make it easy for anybody to figure out what trick she'd used.

As the minutes ticked by, she watched as the fight outside kept getting worse. Half her people were down, and only three of the other side. The guy with the ray gun was tearing them apart; he couldn't shoot through cover, but flesh seemed to explode wherever it hit.

The bus was rounding the last curve now. She cut the engine and let it coast in neutral.

They still heard it coming, but not until too late. They scattered, and not all of them made it. She saw two crushed beneath its wheels, and another sent flying. A couple of others disappeared behind it and didn't appear again.

She returned control of the bus to its traumatized driver and watched as her people counterattacked. Things were much more even now, and the guy with the ray gun was gone. It quickly got down to hand-to-hand, where her side had the advantage.

She watched as the last one of her people dropped the last enemy with an elbow to the throat. It was time to move to a safer location. With the computer in her bag, she could still run things for Xu Mei, relaying through the van's systems.

She took a moment to check up, then a minute and a half to take over another, independent security network in the building. Whoever ran things there was a real paranoid.

She was still taking care of a few last things for Xu Mei when she opened the door and stepped out of the back of the van. She looked around for her escort, but couldn't see her.

Rei turned to move behind the van. The blow caught her in the back of the shoulder, sending her sprawling, but at least she kept her hold on her bag.

She rolled over and found herself looking up into the barrel of the ray gun. Up close, it looked like nothing from Earth, a weird hybrid device of plastic, chitin, and strange, alien flesh.

Its wielder didn't look too good, either. His face looked like it was breaking out in the same alien flesh as the gun. One eye was red and bloodshot, a black substance oozing out around it.

He looked down at her. "You're the one causing all this trouble? I expected better."

"Oh well," he shrugged, "Goodbye anyway." He steadied his monstrous gun, aiming it at her head.

Rei hooked her foot behind his knee and pulled. He toppled, firing wildly as he hit the ground hard. The gun went flying, only to be brought up short by a cable that connected it to his arm.

He rolled away, reeling in the gun and scrambling into a kneeling position.

By this time, she had pulled out the small gun from her bag, the gun she'd wished she had when things went this bad ten years ago. She fired twice. His head snapped backwards, and the strange weapon dropped from nerveless fingers.

Curtis Boatman shoved the door closed behind him. He pushed the security bars into place, then grabbed the servo that allowed them to be remotely operated and pulled it off its wires. That should slow her down.

He slumped against the door. He was getting lightheaded, losing too much blood. He wasn't breathing right, either.

A man ran up to him. One of his scientists. Loyal, but unimaginative. Useless. He didn't even remember the man's name.

"Doctor Boatman?" he said, "What's going on?"

Boatman took a deep breath. His side felt like it was on fire every time he inhaled.

"We're being attacked. There are assassins in the building, and they're after me." He took another, shallower breath, wincing as he did. "Rouse the abominations, round up everybody who can use Arcanotech weapons. There's only two ways in here; we can hold them off."

The man nodded meekly and hurried off.

Stupid. He needed first aid. No time to wait. He shrugged out of the remains of his jacket, and quickly took off his shirt. Not the best bandage, but it would do for now. There was a control center three doors down. From there, he could at least get a sense of what was happening down here.

He'd limped his way halfway there when every door in the hallway slammed closed. He heard the bars locking into place. The doors and bars were designed to hold off a berserk abomination. He had no hope of getting one open.

Xu Mei spoke again through the PA. "You're out of places to run, Curtis. There's nowhere to hide anymore, either.

He ignored her, staggering down the hall as best as he could.

She continued, "It didn't have to end like this. We were considering asking you to join us."

Breathing heavily, Boatman leaned against a door. Far away down a side hall, toward the other entrance, he could hear yelling, the sounds of a fight, the death cries of an abomination. He could barely walk another step.

"But they decided that they didn't want to share, and sent you to kill me instead?" he muttered. Scraping up reserves of strength, he kept moving.

"Nobody sent me to kill you, Curtis," she said. He could hear the sounds of the fight over the PA when she spoke. It never seemed to interrupt her even briefly. "Nobody even asked me to."

He couldn't walk anymore, so he started crawling. Each breath took more effort than the last. He was losing all sensation in his leg except for pain.

She kept talking. "Growing up on the streets, I quickly learned that anybody who couldn't take 'no' for an answer was trouble. Life in business just reinforced that lesson."

He was there. He looked up at a large vault door, made of foot-thick steel, its frame reinforced in every way conceivable. It wasn't in the building plans, and nothing about it was electronic.

As he pulled himself to his feet again, Xu Mei just kept talking. "From everything I've seen, you're worse than that. I'm not sure you really understand the concept that somebody could refuse you." He threw all his weight against the bolt and it slid open, far too slowly.

"I've known a couple of people like that, and so I decided to kill you now, before you cause me even a tenth of the grief they did." There were no more sounds of fighting now. The door was swinging open, revealing a man-sized doorway, a weird light flickering around the edges. On the other side of the portal was a grey tunnel, its walls rough and cave-like.

He gritted his teeth and stepped through. The chill of the transition to the Netherworld seemed less than usual. He would have sealed the door behind him if he could, but there were no handles on this side even if he had had the strength.

No matter. She couldn't track him with his own security systems any more. He knew the Netherworld better than she. He could hole up somewhere, recover, and make his way back through a different portal.

He staggered along the tunnel a short distance. It opened out into an immense cavern, filled with piles of detritus, piles bigger than houses, from worlds long-gone. The Junkyard. Not his ideal refuge, but finding anybody here was damn near impossible.

He looked uncertainly at the slope before him, an unstable pile of debris and rusted metal leading him down to the cavern floor. He began to pick his way down it as quickly as he could manage. He needed to be out of sight before she followed him into the Netherworld.

He made it almost twenty feet before a wave of dizziness washed over him. He felt himself falling, sliding along a wave of junk, before blackness claimed him.

Holz moved among the carnage, seeing what he could do for the wounded and dying, and putting down the abominations that still lived.

It could have been worse. The woman had only paid attention to those who directly opposed her, departing in pursuit of Boatman as soon as she had the opportunity.

Unfortunately, that meant that her human victims had been entirely his men, They'd accounted well for themselves -- no, who was he kidding? They hadn't even touched her. The abominations had slowed her down a little more.

He... he hadn't even lifted a finger. He'd told himself while it was happening that he couldn't risk shooting into the fight when his men were potentially in the line of fire, but really, he just didn't feel like dying for Boatman.

Gog hadn't budged, either. It had continued to operate its computer displays, seemingly unconcerned with the battle raging around it.

Now, it had moved over to Boatman's console, where it continued to work, occasionally giving orders to the remaining staff. They would obey reflexively, uncertain what else to do.

Gog was speaking now, in the low rumble that set Holz's teeth on edge. He had nothing else to do, so moved closer so he could hear better. "Security systems still unavailable. I am getting some idea of the situation through environmental monitoring. It seems to just be the one intruder, or any others have already withdrawn."

It looked at him. "We must consider the possibility that she will return for us when she is finished with Boatman. If she does, she must fight me directly, or die. If she does fight me, she cannot evade your fire."

It returned its attention to the computers. "Financial damage is significant, but recoverable. I am selling off some of our newly-acquired assets to give us more of a cushion. We have lost a number of subsidiaries to hostile takeovers or direct action. All nanotech production is likely lost. A pity."

"Dao Biotech is salvageable," it continued, "Our enemies have revealed themselves and overextended, leaving themselves vulnerable to counterattacks which I am now setting in motion."

"I will need a human figurehead, of course. Holz, you will do nicely."

The Helix Ripper blast punched a hole through Gog's torso, spraying foul-smelling ichor all over the console.

It spun and charged Holz, crossing the distance faster than he believed possible. He barely had time to fire again before it reached him.

Even with its head now gone, Gog still managed to tear the Helix Ripper away from him, crushing the weapon in its death convulsions as it crashed to the ground at his feet.

Holz stood, breathing heavily, looking down at the corpse, its outstretched hands just centimeters away from him.

"Not just humans," he muttered, then turned and walked away.

Critical Shift: Revelations

jlighton — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:47:17 GMT

In which some things finally get explained.

This is the shortest of the final three chapters, and the first section with Rei and Song is the one that I wanted in chapter four, but just couldn't fit it into the chapter's structure.

Li Ting contemplated the device before him. It was a smooth hemisphere of a black, glassy material, slightly larger than two fists. It bore a few small openings at the base. It had been accompanied by a bag containing a snarl of cables and devices of unknown purpose.

This was not at all what he had been expecting to receive from his agent, but it was all the courier had been given. The only indication of purpose was a small note affixed to the device's surface, instructing him to touch an otherwise indistinguishable point on the device's surface.

After first banishing his servitors from the chamber, he did so.

The point he touched began to glow, and the device emitted a melodic chime.

A ghostly image appeared before him, the face of his Harbinger, somehow formed of light projected from the device. The image began to speak.

"My liege. As you instructed, I have made alliance with the masters of this juncture. A more complete report is contained within this device, but it will wait."

"I have also learned the secret you sought. It proved to be a secret guarded mostly by the difficulty of making use of it."

"In order to combine chi and technology, one must be able to design and construct one's own cybernetic enhancements. The understanding so gained allows one's chi to flow unimpeded through the devices."

"...or so I am assured. The construction of cybernetics requires many years of study even for denizens of this time, who have been raised with their technology. Such knowledge is well beyond my capacity."

"This computer contains vast amounts of knowledge and instruction in the necessary arts, as well as instruction on how to use the device itself. It draws energy from an internal source, but it will fade in perhaps ten hours."

Another image materialized in the air, of a device composed of a flat plane the size of a man's hand, and covered in ridges, all of which was on the end of a long cord. Then another image, this one of the device's base, with one of the openings glowing.

"Place the large end of this device in an open flame, and connect the cable to the main body of the computer as indicated. As long as the device remains in the flame, it will power the computer."

"Once it is connected, I must give way to a tutorial designed to teach the use of this computer. It was created to educate children, for they are the only residents of this world who need it; it does not deliberately give insult."

He bowed, and disappeared.

Li Ting sent for his two most cunning artificers. He was a patient man when he needed to be, and the secrets held in this device would be worth his patience.

The security man waved Song and Rei through the door, shutting it behind them. He did not enter with them.

The lab itself was remarkably clean and well-organized. A small man, with thin, greying hair looked up from his comm pad when they entered.

"About time you arrived," he said. "This is all very irregular. Our work here isn't even cleared for release to most of the company, but they woke us up in the middle of the night to work on this rush project for you. I assume Ms. Xu will not be joining us?"

"No," said Song, "She's busy."

The scientist sighed. "At least she's on the board. I do not look forward to explaining this to my superiors. I would like some evidence that this is authorized."

Song produced a data card. "Will a signed directive from your CEO do?"

He snatched it out of Song's hand. He tapped it against the com pad, checking the digital signatures. "Fine, fine." He exhaled slowly. "Sorry; I'm a bit cranky when I haven't had enough sleep. I'm Dr. Leung. I assume you want to interview, um... we've been calling him Subject Alpha. I assume he has a name. I don't want to know what it is."

Rei nodded.

"Unfortunately," said the doctor, "That's not yet possible. He's proving remarkably intractable. Are you at all familiar with the basic concept of neuroprogramming?"

"I've read a little on the basics." said Rei.

"That should be sufficient," said the doctor, "Even if you could understand the deeper explanations, I'm not allowed to go into any details."

He continued, "We exposed him to a generic pattern designed to induce compliance and suppress independent thought; he remained resistant and hostile. We tried several other basic behavior-modifiers; brain scans indicated they were working, but his behavior remained unchanged. Follow-up scans were interesting; it was as if somebody else were reprogramming him immediately after we did so. We were working up a custom pattern for him when I left."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you worried about causing permanent damage by rewriting his brain so often?"

"No, not really. Our techniques are considerably more sophisticated than what's generally considered to be the state of the art. We forecast minimal degradation of recall and language skills, and at most ten percent long-term cognitive impairment."

He turned, and tapped his ID badge against the door. "Let's go and see if they've made any progress; I expect that the tailored approach will prove no more successful, but we have to try before moving on."

He paused, "Oh, yes. Young lady?"

"Yes?"

"Please keep away from the computers. Your reputation precedes you, and security only agreed to allow you in if all systems were forced to automatically shut down should you attempt to touch them. I'm sure you can understand how disruptive that would be, so better for all of us if you kept away. It's not that we expect you to try anything, but you know how security people can get."

Rei did not respond.

He watched the sun sink behind the city of Beijing from a dozen angles. He was overextending; the lag shouldn't have been noticeable, but everything was a heartbeat too slow.

Fortunately, all he was doing tonight was watching.

His remotes settled into their search patterns, and he settled in for a long night. From his vantage points, he watched the city finish up the business of the day and get started on the night. He watched the people hurry from place to place, avoiding being out after dark. The ones who had nowhere to go huddled together in the back alleys, hoping they'd live to see the next day's misery.

There. A non-human infra-red signature crept across a rooftop, soon joined by others. He moved in closer, to confirm what he already knew: the monsters were out, and much earlier than he'd expected.

He set the one remote to following them. He was surprised when one took to the air, ferrying the others across the street on insectoid wings too delicate-looking to believe they could support the weight. He pulled the remote back further, but kept to the trail. The things moved more like a well-trained commando team than rampaging beasts.

The rest of his remotes collapsed on the point of initial sighting, then spread out again. The lair must be nearby. Time to call in the Triads. He opened the comm channel.

"Yue? It's Dimitri. I've got them. Copying you the location feed now. Still vague, but by the time you get your crew there, I should have something."

"Excellent," she said, "Your associates still wish anyone we find to be taken alive?"

"Yes."

"My men are not happy about that. It's more dangerous, and they want payback; we have lost several people."

"So have others," he said, "And they want to make sure the payback is properly distributed."

"I know," she replied, "They will complain, but they will do as they are ordered. I'll call you when we get there."

There were a lot of candidates in this run-down industrial area, but he soon settled on a warehouse. It had a roof hatch for aerial cargo loading, no ground-level windows, and blacked-out skylights. Heat signatures were hard to read through the walls, but there seemed to be two people, and some operational heavy machinery.

A quick check of available ownership records proved surprising: The Toriyama Group could certainly afford to engineer monsters like these, but they were mostly in media and associated merchandising. Still, this was just a warehouse; nothing should be operating this late.

He tried to get a remote inside, but security was much tighter than he'd expect for a target of relatively limited value.

Yue and her crew were there soon enough. He floated three remotes down to join them, and kept the rest in a patrol pattern. There was no activity to be seen on the nearby streets except for the cleanup crew parked on the next block.

He opened the comm channel again. "All clear. Two inside. One near the door, one in back. Security's high, so I couldn't get in, but I see nothing lethal, just alarms."

Yue walked over to crack the front door herself. Dimitri moved a remote closer to get a better look. As she worked, she said, "I know the answer, but I was told to ask: you are still unwilling to sell your technology?"

He sighed, "Still no, and no, I still won't work for you, or anybody else, either. I like the freelancer's life."

"I know," she said, "But the bosses, they see the value you could bring us, and they want it." She stepped back. "We're in, so you can have your drone stop staring at my ass now. Count of three."

On her count, two men burst through the door. Dimitri slipped a remote right behind them, in front of Yue and the rest of them. The man in the office had just started to stand, reaching for a gun. Dimitri dropped him with a narc dart before the first wave could reach him.

They spread out, looking for anything among the stacks of boxed toys. Dimitri checked the EM scanner's logs.

"There was a signal burst as we came in. Assume he sounded an alarm."

Yue nodded. They spread out, searching the warehouse, still cautious, but more hurried.

He floated to the rear, and around a near-wall of boxes. "Back here," he said, as he scanned the scene. About a dozen tanks of some sort, like much weirder versions of the healing pods they use in burn wards. Racks of tools, a couple of computers...

A burst of static, and suddenly he was only flying eleven remotes.

In the thirty seconds it took to get the other two inside, the orderly search had been replaced by a scene of chaos. Two of Yue's crew were already down, and as he watched, another fell, firing ineffectually into the creature's torso as it closed and backhanded him across the room. It leapt impossibly high, clung to a wall, then hurled itself at two figures below.

Yue kept firing at it, leaping away only at the last instant. The man next to her was not so fast.

Dimitri finally gathered his wits. A quick burst of micromissiles from the lead remote got the thing's attention. He dodged backward, luring it into his crossfire, and emptied his magazines. Tiny explosions burst all over its flesh, and it howled in pain before slumping to the ground, still twitching.

Yue stalked over and put two bullets into its head. "Cleanup's on the way," she said. "And when payback time comes, tell your friends to make sure we're included."

Rei Okamoto watched as they strapped the man into the chair and wired his eyes open. He looked so different from the way she remembered him; so helpless in the hands of his captors.

She felt some sympathy for him, but only a little.

Doctor Leung spoke. "All clear. Reprogramming in five... four... three... two... one... zero!"

Only the intended victim could see the pattern displayed on the screen before him, and it was designed to fit only his mind, but Rei and two of the scientists still flinched and looked away from the light reflecting off his face.

Only seconds later, the light dimmed. He seemed to sag against the restraints, no longer fighting them. Somebody touched a control, freeing his eyes again.

Doctor Leung turned to the scientist at the brain scanner. "Anything?"

She adjusted the display. "It's still disordered, but it's looking good so far. The implanted pattern seems to be holding."

Rei saw him stiffen in the chair, struggling against his bonds again.

"Wait... it's breaking up. The prior pattern is reasserting itself."

Doctor Leung turned to Rei. He looked exasperated. "I don't understand it," he said. "We've checked for every possible cause. None of his implants could do this. Nothing like this exists in the literature."

The door opened, and Song returned. Rei hurried over, and they embraced briefly.

"Anything?" he said.

Doctor Leung shook his head.

"Well, we may have found another one, and a consultant should be here in a few hours to help."

Doctor Leung looked puzzled. "I am not one to question Xu Mei lightly, but who does she think could possibly be qualified to assist us? All the foremost experts in the field are right here already."

Song smiled. "All she said was that she was sending an expert in weird shit."

Holz checked the time. Everybody should be in position. He turned on his radio. "We are go. Shut down all electronics and move." He gave them a moment, then pressed the button.

The radio shrieked as the first micro-EMP bomb went off. He shut it down then, trusting that the rest would detonate in sequence. Each pulse would only take out modern electronics for a little while, but they'd scattered dozens over the building, each barely large enough to see unless you were looking for them. Until they ran out, it was back to the Stone Age.

His squad were already through the main entrance, and he was right behind them, unspooling cable as he went. They'd practiced this extensively, and so far everything was going smoothly. The enemy were taken by surprise, their command and control systems cut off.

He checked the box he carried. It was just electrical cable and light bulbs, too simple to be scrambled. The other teams' lights were still green.

They stalled a bit in front of the board room. The last guards decided to make a stand there, and the hand-to-hand fighting was not going as well as it should have.

"Fall back!" he yelled, his voice cutting through the din. His men did as they were told, and the guards clustered around the door, relieved but suspicious. They knew this was too easy. There was no way an assault this well-planned would back off at the first sign of resistance.

They were right. As soon as his men were clear, Holz unslung his Helix Ripper. The guards had never seen anything like it, but they were no fools. They started to dive for cover, but he was too fast to them. The Ripper's beam tore into them, detonating flesh wherever it touched.

As soon as they were down, he stopped firing. He felt the old familiar sensation of insects crawling beneath his skin. Of all the things he'd missed, he'd missed that the least.

A minute later, they were in the board room. The Board of Directors of Chiba Prefecture were lined up against the wall before him, watching him warily. He checked the lights: still green, and the white lights were lit, saying all objectives were secured. He flipped a switch, and his own white light lit up.

Now for the weird part. It bothered him mostly that they were used to this here. It didn't happen all the time, maybe two or three times a year, but the fact that there was a formalized, traditional, process for this was something he just couldn't get his head around.

He recited from memory. "As a duly appointed representative of the Dao Biotech Corporation, whose business interests and property have been threatened by your inability to maintain public safety, I am dissolving the Board of Directors of Chiba Prefecture and assuming direct control."

He pulled out the paper and a pen. It was archaic; everything was done electronically, but paper was still accepted, and with the micro-EMPs still going off, it had certain advantages. "Sign here." It was a standard contract; they were giving up their shares and ceding all authority in return for token compensation.

The CEO stepped forward. "No. We refuse. You manufactured this crisis. You have no grounds for this; nobody will accept it."

She turned pale as Holz stepped back and raised the Helix Ripper, but did not move. She simply watched him.

Holz closed his eyes as he fired and her head exploded. Much to his relief, the rest of them signed.

In the waiting room by the labs, Rei curled up in a large comfortable chair, half asleep. It had been a long few days, and it didn't look like it was going to slow down any time soon.

While she slept as best she could, Song meditated. Doctor Leung fretted. He didn't seem to like disruptions to his routine, and had had nothing but recently.

When the door opened, Rei found herself wide awake, her heart racing. It took her several deep breaths to calm down.

The man in the doorway was tall and pale, with long, unkempt white hair. He was shirtless and well-muscled beneath his long leather coat, and she could see the handles of the swords he wore at his sides.

The two guards escorting him looked deeply uncomfortable. They didn't want to be here. No; they didn't want him to be here.

She could see why. There was nothing about his look that was out of place; a bit wild for corporate space, but far from the strangest you'd see on the street. Still, there was something in his posture and the way he moved that was fundamentally out of place. It said he didn't really belong, and he knew it, and he didn't care.

Song was on his feet as soon as the door opened. The two eyed each other warily, warriors taking the measure of a possible opponent. The moment stretched out, neither willing to yield. Doctor Leung picked nervously at his sleeve.

"Just take them out and measure already," grumbled Rei as she stretched.

Song snorted. The stranger looked at her. Slowly, his mouth crept into the shape of a smile. He bowed. "I am the Harbinger," he said. Rei decided not to ask.

He continued, "I was told that I might be able aid you with the interrogation of a prisoner."

Introductions were made, and after some discussion Doctor Leung grudgingly led them back to where Subject Alpha was sitting in the holding cell. When Song and the Harbinger entered, he backed away in fear, soon finding himself trapped in a corner. Song calmly applied a sedative patch to the man's neck, leaving him conscious but limp, and they maneuvered him back to the bench.

There, the Harbinger sat facing him, staring silently into his eyes for several minutes. Without a word, he stood and left the cell, Song following behind him.

"I see why your science was thwarted," he said, "This man is the subject of an intricate work of sorcery."

Doctor Leung spluttered something about absurdity and nonsense, and everybody else ignored him.

The Harbinger continued, "It is well beyond my ability to break it; I could send for one who could, but it might be several weeks before he could arrive."

Song looked thoughtful. "Can you track the people who did it?"

"I cannot."

"Can we? Could this have been done to him just passing by on the street, or does it take more time and contact? Did whoever did it even have to be there?"

"I believe it would be the work of several hours, and must be done in person," said the Harbinger, "But there are several philosophies of sorcery in the world, and some may be better able to do this than the one I know of."

"Probably good enough," said Song, "Rei, how old was the sabotage you dug up?"

"About six months."

"It's enough to start with."

Critical Shift: Compromises

jlighton — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:24:56 GMT

This is the first truly new bit of fiction I wrote. The TFT Dragon frame was new, but it pretty much followed along how I planned it out way back when.

The second half of the Critical Shift story, on the other hand, was much vaguer in my head. I had some idea how it ended, but not the details, and everything in between was uncertain.

This is certainly not the story I would have written back then. A number of elements are just things I wouldn't have thought about using, or wouldn't have been comfortable with.

It's also a lot longer than the previous chapters. The first three combined are about as long as the fourth, and there was a section that was going to be in this chapter, but I ended up bumping to five for a variety of reasons, mostly pacing. I don't know if the length is because the plot really starts moving forward here, or because I'm writing differently.

It was a bit tricky to get started on this one. I eventually just started writing what ended up being the first scene, realized what the chapter title was, and everything started rolling from there.

Rei Okamoto started cursing.

As she traced her way through the corporate network, she continued to curse in four different natural languages, two constructed ones, and one assembly language for good measure.

She hated security consulting. It paid well, but it was boring, tedious work, requiring painstaking attention to detail. She'd only agreed to take this job as a favor to a friend.

At least it wasn't boring anymore. She fired off a priority message to the corp's security lead. It would get him here, even this late; then she got back to carefully unravelling the mess she'd found.

Whoever had done it was very, very good. Surrounding the core processes were tripwires, watchdogs on the tripwires, watchdogs on the watchdogs, tripwires to protect them all, and on and on and on. Its tentacles spread everywhere, from accounting to the backup systems to the intruder-suppression systems. Pulling at any part of it would set the entire thing in motion, tearing the entire network to shreds.

That was the offensive part. There was no purpose to this beyond destruction. It wasn't spying. It couldn't take over the network. All it could do was destroy the company. It wasn't even good for extortion -- it wasn't designed to be disabled.

Of course, that didn't mean it couldn't be. Once she found the first watchdog process with nothing checking its integrity, she injected some new code, and it happily reported everything was well as she corrupted everything it was supposed to protect. From there, she could take it all apart.

She heard the door open, and tore some attention from her work. Without turning around, she tapped into the security camera feed to confirm it was who she was expecting.

"You have real problems," she said, as she shut down a process waiting to ship the contents of their warehouses to a random assortment of slums in Europe. "Somebody's been in your systems, and they know far too much about how everything works, and they really, really don't like you."

She hadn't really noticed he was still approaching until he was right on top of her. She snapped her head around. When she saw the hate in his eyes, she barely had time to send one command to the system before he grabbed her shoulder.

The charge from his shock implant sent her into convulsions. She felt herself crash to the floor, the computer falling on top of her.

Everything went dark.

"I'm still amazed at how easy it all is, Geoffrey."

Curtis Boatman grinned. A gesture, and an image of the globe appeared above his desk, turning and zooming at his command to display points of interest.

Smythe, lounging in a chair across the room, tore his gaze away from the Paradox Cube floating before him. "How so?"

Boatman continued, "I was expecting a more classical military campaign, and there's still some of that. Look at Chiba."

The map zoomed in. "They're not budging at all. So we up the pressure. Get me Gog."

The computer slid open a window in the air. After a moment, the abomination's face appeared. "Yes?" it snarled.

"I want increased abomination attacks in Chiba prefecture and surrounding regions. Deploy more nanovirus seeds as well. This will be our beachhead in Japan."

"Yes, Doctor," it said. "I will need to move forces out of the China coastal regions to do so. I will transmit a summary shortly." The window slid closed.

Boatman leaned back in his chair. "Do you have any useful puppets there?"

"Just the governor," replied Smythe.

"Ah well. I can hardly expect to get everything I want. Still, he should be useful to keep the people calm and get them to cooperate. Get me Holz."

No window opened. "He is not responding," said the computer in a pleasant woman's voice.

"Send a message, then. Tell him I want assault plans on the Chiba Board of Directors in front of me in 24 hours. As soon as we have enough of an excuse, we'll decapitate and take over, all in the name of public safety. We have enough business interests in the area I doubt anybody will even look twice."

He turned his attention back to the globe. "That's going to be one of the messier ones. But take Singapore." The globe zoomed in. "All that work you did? Barely necessary. In exchange for a contract to provide special security services and control of nanotech outbreaks, we now have a significant stake in the government of Singapore."

Smythe shrugged, "Perhaps my toys are not so useful now, but what about when they realize how you've played them?"

Boatman chuckled. "They know. They have to know. They looked at the numbers, and decided it was worth their while to sell out."

A window slid open, again revealing General Gog. "Doctor Boatman? I have revised the campaign plans and uploaded them for your approval."

Boatman popped open a data window, and skimmed. "Everything looks in order. And the casualty estimates?"

"I am still trying to adjust some details to get the ideal number of casualties." It paused, and another data window opened. "These are only preliminary; as I adjust the plan, they may increase by up to ten percent. Is that acceptable?"

Boatman barely looked at the numbers. "They're fine."

Gog's response was only a low rumbling noise. "Very good," it finally said.

The window closed again. Smythe looked at Boatman quizzically. "Was he laughing?"

"I believe it was purring." A message window opened before him.

He sighed. "Finally. Hong Kong's board has been jerking me around for days. They want in-person negotiations, but they won't say when, or who's representing them. This morning, they finally agreed to a dinner meeting, which is in an hour, and they're just now telling me where and who I'm talking to."

"Rather late for dinner, isn't it?" said Smythe.

"I had a late lunch." replied Boatman. "It's typical of the way they've been behaving all along. I'm half inclined just to give them the same treatment as Chiba and to hell with it."

Another window popped open, "So, what do we have on their mystery negotiator?"

Boatman sat up straighter, and reflexively straightened his tie. "Well. This just got far more appealing."

A light rain was falling on the roof of the Dao Biotech building. Holz ignored it as he leaned against one of the air-defense batteries and watched the city below, a sprawling mass of light and activity and barely-controlled chaos, so different from the grey rigidity he'd grown up in.

Did Boatman really think he could control all this?

No. That would be what Bonengel would have wanted; to take all of this and shove it into the mold of his perfect society, cutting off everything that wouldn't fit. Boatman just wanted to own it all; he didn't care what anybody else did with their lives as long as he got what he wanted.

All things considered, not the worst attitude for anybody who aspired to rule this version of the world.

Holz sighed and turned his back on the city. It was a long way down; a fifty-seven story run to street level, then five more by elevator to the underground command and control bunker. Of course, he didn't have to run all the way down, but he needed to stay in shape. The day-to-day routine of military life was the one thing he'd missed since the world changed: the training, the drills, all of that.

Not so much the alarms in the middle of the night, the slaughter, the friends he'd never see again. But there really wasn't going to be much of that. Boatman was right; there really wasn't any resistance to be found here.

Scar Kuo strolled confidently down the street. The display in his shades let him keep pace with Vinh and Ed as they moved down parallel streets, looking for trouble.

There wasn't much trouble to be found. Three weeks before, these streets would have been empty this late, the bars closed; the people who had to be out hurrying on their way. Now, things were starting to get back to normal. People were still jumpy, but business was better.

He nodded politely to Nine-Finger Ma when he passed him. The Red Knives claimed this part of Sanlitun. If Kuo or any other of the Four Dragons gang were seen here, somebody would have to bleed.

But not right now. Right now, there was a truce. As far as Kuo knew, nobody had got together to say there was a truce, but there was. The gangs knew what was bad for business, and they set their own concerns aside to deal with the greater threat. The Four Dragons could sweep the Red Knives' streets; the Red Knives could hunt on the other side of the bridge without fear, and so on.

He heard the screams right before he got the ping from Vinh. He started running, moving to intercept. He watched the dot that was Ed move to flank and cut off retreat. He took half a second to copy the feed to Nine-Finger; no reason to cut the Red Knives out of the action.

Then he was running full speed. He hurdled over a woman lying bleeding in the street, her guts ripped open. A man knelt next to her, barely aware of the blood running down his own arm.

He heard the thunder of Vinh's shotgun as he rounded the corner into the alley and saw what they were hunting tonight. It was ugly: man-shaped but short, maybe four feet tall and almost as wide, solid muscle. It had a goat's head and horns, and it hissed at Vinh, a snake's tongue flicking out of its mouth. It crouched, watching them, black blood oozing from its side and steaming on the street. The insectoid red lens over its right eye glowed dimly in the shadows.

That was the part that bothered Kuo the most; not just that somebody was growing these monsters and setting them loose, but they were cybering them up. He'd cut some of the tech out of a previous one and brought it to a mod parlor; the doc there had said that it didn't work, couldn't work, had no interfaces, and really, just looking at it was making him ill.

Ed was behind the thing now, a knife in each hand. Nine-Finger caught up to them, breathing heavily, but ready to fight. Vinh pumped the shotgun.

Ed was looking up, at something above their heads. Then something dropped from the roof above him. Kuo saw a wolf's face, foot-long metal claws, and far too many arms.

Then something hit him hard from above, claws tearing into him. He heard the shotgun; he heard Vinh screaming.

Rei was conscious enough to hear the man's body hit the floor. She tried to order the intruder-control drones to move to a guard pattern, but the computer she was connected to was dead.

Unless her jacks were fried. That would just make this day complete.

Slowly, fighting her still-spasming muscles for control, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her vision was still blurry, but she could see the computer well enough to tell that it had not fared well when it landed on her rib cage.

She hadn't done too well in the exchange, either. A few deep breaths convinced her that nothing was broken, but it still hurt like hell. Slowly, she removed the control glove and unplugged the direct-line cable from the back of her neck.

The nearest working computer was all the way across the room. She didn't try to stand; she half-crawled, half-dragged her way to the other desk. Was it really only three meters? She had to stop twice to rest.

Once there, a painful stretch got her the direct-line cable. She hesitated briefly before plugging it in.

She exhaled. She was still working. Authenticate to the system, grab control of the drones. She was starting to feel better. She sent one drone to get her a bottle of water. On the way out, she shot another dart into the security guy, just in case. She did not want to have to deal with him until she had backup.

She put the rest of the drones into paranoid mode. Nobody was coming through that door and remaining vertical.

The next step was to open a com channel. Her first call went unanswered. Not that surprising. She took several deep breaths to steady herself before her next attempt.

"Hunh... wha?"

"Sweetie, it's Rei."

"What's wrong?" His voice was muted. He was subvocalizing, of course; he wouldn't be alone.

Rei tried to keep her voice steady, "A lot's wrong. Right now, I need two things: I need a direct line to your mother, and I need you here, now."

Before he could say anything, she continued, "Tell Lian that she can kick my ass for this next time I see her."

She could almost hear Song smile. "She'll understand. Wait... how could you reach me? I'd turned comms off."

"You were the one who decided to put a computer in your head."

"But..."

"How many times do I have to tell you? If it contains software, it is mine to do with as I will." Rei tapped into his visual feed and switched on his night vision, just to prove the point. "She really needs to clean near the ceiling better."

"Hey!"

"Sorry. Please, get here as soon as you can, love."

She cut audio, but kept visual as he woke Lian and explained to her. When they kissed and embraced, she felt warm and safe.

Once Song was on his way, Rei turned her attention to the building's security systems, giving him unrestricted access; the only one save her who could move freely about the building.

Even by ballistic shuttle, he was still a couple of hours away. Until then, she was alone.

Sitting under a desk, Rei Okamoto hugged her knees to her chest, and pulled the security cordon tighter around herself.

Boatman watched admiringly as Xu Mei stalked back and forth on the restaurant's private balcony, heedless of the light rain. He wondered what was so important as to drag her away from this painstakingly-arranged meeting. She was subvocalizing to avoid any potential eavesdroppers, so it would be difficult to find out. He pulled out his com pad and make a note to talk to his doctors about having a subvocalization sensor implanted; he'd seen the utility, but never made the time.

While he had it out, he checked on the signal intercept. Unsurprisingly, it was encrypted. The device was recording for later analysis, but its preliminary report said she was using a one-time pad, so it was unlikely to be of any use.

At least he had a rational explanation for all the secrecy around this meeting. Not that it was any less irritating, but the woman was practically a legend in this juncture. He'd reviewed what little they had on her on the way here: brilliant cyberneticist, master martial artist, extremely wealthy, a board member or advisor for a number of major corporations. Fifteen years ago she had probably been the most famous person on the planet, and even after many years of relative reclusiveness and retirement, she still beat all but the major media stars.

She didn't look her age, either. He shifted in his his chair to better face the balcony and admire the view.

He wished he had more solid information about her, but she'd clearly spent years muddying the waters, even going as far as to personally fund three mutually contradictory bio-vids.

Still, he didn't need his intelligence division's best guesses to know that she was well-connected, and that this was about more than just Hong Kong. He was disrupting whatever balance of power existed here, and all the major factions were going to be interested in him. The only real surprise was that it had taken this long for any of them to approach him, however obliquely.

All in all, he thought things were going quite well so far tonight.

Her conversation finished, Xu Mei returned to the dining room. Small beads of water slid off her long silver hair and onto the carpet, and her dress clung even more closely to her figure than it had before.

She slid into the chair opposite him. "My apologies, but some things cannot wait."

Boatman smiled. "I understand completely." He sipped his wine. Just like the rest of the meal, it was superb, better than anything even he had been able to obtain in the old days.

"While I was out there," she continued, "I sent the Hong Kong board your latest proposal." She picked up her own wineglass and drained it. Boatman watched the ways the light reflected off the surface of her cybernetic arm. It was a fascinating piece of work, almost certainly hand-made by its wearer. "They certainly won't be eager to accept, but it's not completely impossible."

Boatman shrugged. "They're not going to get a better offer by waiting."

A waiter appeared to silently remove their empty dishes and glasses. "It's late," she continued, "and they're not going to have an answer until tomorrow." She stood. "So we're done with business for the evening."

Boatman stood as well. "A shame to part company so soon."

The restaurant's owner hurried over, bowing deeply. "I trust everything was to your satisfaction?"

"Indeed," said Boatman. "I believe it was the finest meal I have ever had."

The owner bowed again. "Of course, there will be no charge," he said, bowing to Xu Mei. "That you have chosen my establishment is payment enough."

Xu Mei laughed softly as he hurried away. Noting the quizzical look on Boatman's face, she said, "He'll be able to triple his business over the next month while raising prices twenty percent just on the rumor that I was here. I should be charging them."

Boatman chuckled. As they walked through the otherwise-closed restaurant to the high-security entrance, she slipped her arm through his, pulling him closer. "We don't have to part company just because we're done with our business." She smiled, the left side of her mouth twitching upward slightly. "Would you like to join me while we wait for their response?"

Holz was covered in sweat and breathing hard by the time he reached the ground floor. It was a harsh reminder that he was getting old; that he'd let himself get soft.

Palmprint, retinal scan, and password, and the secure elevator admitted him to the underground complex. His rooms were five floors down, near the command center, so he could be at Boatman's beck and call at all hours.

At least he was mostly in training and planning here. Boatman had plenty of people half Holz's age to do the fighting. They didn't need an old man slowing them down.

They were a mixed bag; some from this juncture, who knew the tech and the world but didn't have the mind-set for even half-assed military organization. Most of the rest were recruits Boatman had dug up from one of the past junctures, trained and disciplined, but completely lost when it came to the tech and handling situations in the field. Between the two of them, he'd managed to scrape together something workable. It'd never have cut it in BuroMil, of course.

And then there were the abominations, without which none of this would be possible. Fortunately, he didn't have to deal with them directly.

The elevator doors slid open, allowing him into the command center. It was mostly empty. Boatman was gone for the night. He was sure that Smythe was lurking somewhere, but not here. There were just a few people awake, keeping an eye on things.

As he walked through on his way to his shower and bed, the light from a side chamber caught his eye. Speaking of abominations...

He paused to watch. The computers here were far more sophisticated than anything the Buro had ever had; Holz still wasn't that good with them, and neither was Boatman. Smythe could barely handle the basics, but he claimed technology was beneath him.

He watched Gog, standing in the middle of a kaleidoscope of floating holographic displays, an order of magnitude more than the best humans could manage. They were continuously in motion as it slid screens around; reading a report here, sending a message there, a map, a building schematic, stock transactions, troop movements, and many that he could not identify; it was virtually running the entire operation on its own.

"Holz," it rumbled, not even turning around to see him. "Boatman wished to speak with you; he has left instructions."

Holz groaned. "Is it something I need to deal with now?"

Gog continued to juggle data. "No. It will wait until the day."

"You're very busy. What's the situation?"

"The true war begins. It is still subtle. They prepare, not act, but I see the patterns. They prepare to attack on all levels: physical, electronic, financial."

"Have you told Boatman?"

"No. He is away. That was the first movement. Since his departure, they have begun to probe, to prepare."

Holz scowled. "How much of a security detail does he have?"

"Little or none. Do not be alarmed. They do not attack. I suspect they attempt to reach an accommodation with him."

Holz relaxed very slightly. "Do you think he'll take it?"

Gog turned to face him, its eyes burning. "I can not know. I am many hundreds of years old, but I do not understand why you humans choose what you do. I have learned only one thing about you, but it has served me well."

Holz took a step back, not even realizing he was doing it. "What?"

Gog smiled. Holz expected to see sharp teeth, but Gog had no teeth at all, just chitinous ridges for crushing and tearing. It was not a comforting sight.

"Eventually," it said, "You always make a mistake."

"So I will watch, and wait. They will maneuver and position. I will wait and prepare. When they make their mistake," it said, "I will be ready to destroy them."

Holz wasn't armed, and desperately wished to be. "Are you waiting for us to make our mistake, too?" He did his best to keep his voice even, to not show fear.

Gog's laughter was a horrid buzzing noise. "Boatman has made his precautions against his own mistakes. The device in my brain provides unspeakable pain upon any thought of turning against you. It conditions me. In time, it may not even be necessary, but it will still remain."

It turned back to its work. "Sleep well, human."

Curtis Boatman got out of the bed, yawning and stretching. It was late morning, and he had got very little sleep. A hand snaked out from under the covers and grabbed his ass. "Do you really want to go?" asked Xu Mei sleepily.

"My business interests will not look after themselves." he said.

"A pity," grumbled Xu Mei, and she rolled over and buried herself deeper in the covers.

In the bathroom, he washed and dressed, pausing to examine the bite marks on the side of his neck. One of them still stung a little. Xu Mei was certainly more aggressive than he was used to, but it was an enjoyable change.

Back in the bedroom of the hotel suite, Xu Mei had pushed the covers aside and ordered the curtains open. Sunlight spilled into the room and across her naked body. Boatman paused in the bathroom doorway, admiring the way her body moved as she stretched.

She was wearing a delicate earpiece. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "They've made a counteroffer: six percent and they'll make you chairman of the Board."

He shook his head.

"It's a generous offer," she said. "More than I expected them to even consider. Offering the chairmanship to an outsider is a huge concession."

"And yet it is not enough," said Boatman, "The chairmanship without enough voting shares to back it is meaningless. Especially as I will be, as you say, an outsider."

"You'd be surprised," she said, sitting up and stretching some more, "You can accomplish a lot as the first among equals."

Boatman shook his head again. "They know how to reach me when they wish to offer better terms."

She shrugged. "It's the best offer you're going to get."

Boatman turned away. "Then I hope they can find some other solution to their problems."

Tim Powers Movies

jlighton — Thu, 19 May 2011 18:24:28 GMT

In a conversation with my sister that was spawned by the fact that On Stranger Tides is being sold in grocery stores, I came up with the idea of other movie franchises deciding to "adapt" Tim Powers novels.

Ocean's 11+n: Last Call
Twilight: The Stress of Her Regard

(That last one is my sister's fault.)

Critical Shift: Bargains

jlighton — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:10:37 GMT

This was the last piece of the story I wrote back in the day. It and chapter two each picked up a segment while I was working on the second half, but they're mostly old work.

It sort of links to the other main story of the Critical Shift set, which is how the Ascended are dealing with the changes. (Hint: Not well.) That story wasn't really planned to be written, and I am not listening to the little voice in my head that is telling me to write it.

The Harbinger paused as he walked through the midnight streets. He heard the faint splashing of men approaching, moving to surround him.

His hands moved to his swords. It appeared somebody had heard his questions, and he would finally get some answers.

Curtis Boatman sipped his coffee and regarded the man opposite him. He was large and bulky, but it was mostly muscle, not fat. He wore a dark, expensive suit and kept his head shaved bald. Dark glasses obscured his eyes.

Boatman found himself surprised at the man's calm, a calm not shared by his bodyguards, who watched every entrance as if they expected assassins to burst in at any second.

Not that that was at all a paranoid assumption, all things considered.

Boatman steepled his fingers. "I must admit I was surprised when you contacted my people. Your... predecessor would never have countenanced this meeting.

The other man laughed. "No, Doctor, he would not have. But he is gone, his house a shambles. I am the Unspoken Name."

"I must ask before we proceed: do you understand the nature of the tiger you currently have by the tail?"

Again, the Name laughed. "I do indeed; that is why I will prevail. They see me as a nuisance, not a true threat. By the time they realize how blind they've been, they will find themselves tamed... or put down."

The first assault came immediately; six men and women armed with blades emerged from the darkness. They moved with precision; they were not the usual breed of predator that haunted these streets. When he moved toward one side of the circle, they moved in concert to keep him centered.

In one motion, he threw open his coat and drew his swords. The blades hissed and steamed in the steady rain.

Moving as one, his foes closed the remaining distance. He spun and danced, parrying every strike. Their blades would cut through a normal sword, but his were reinforced by his faith in the Fire Righteous.

Enough. He had their measure now. One sword flicked in a lazy arc. One head splashed into a puddle.

Again acting as one, his foes stumbled, if only for a moment. His other sword traced a crescent of flame in the air as the other five crumpled to the ground.

A seventh approached, a dark man with eyes of cold metal and arms to
match. He raised one hand, and his fingers folded out of the way as a white jet of the purest flame sprung from his palm.

The Harbinger laughed.

Boatman smiled thinly. "You certainly do not lack for ambition... but that brings us to the business at hand. What is it you feel we have to offer each other?"

"A great deal, my friend, a great deal."

The Name was clearly in his element here. "You can obtain men in your juncture, but you cannot be sure of their loyalties; I can provide men, men that you cannot trust, but at least you know where their loyalties lie."

"And what do you gain in this?"

"My men are tempered in battle. They gain access to the technology of your juncture. And just by existing, you place pressure on my enemies. They fear you more than they do me."

"Tempting. You hand me the world, and yet you seem to think you're coming out ahead on the deal." Boatman paused to allow the Name's laughter to die down. "Throw in a trifling matter, and I believe we have a deal."

"What is this 'trifling matter'?"

Boatman retrieved some papers from his pocket and slid them across the table. "Once things are going well, I will have no further use for him, but I cannot trust the matter to my own people."

The Name flipped through the file. "Not exactly the trivial matter you make it out to be -- we've had to deal with his kind before. However, it shouldn't be a problem; we've dealt with his kind before."

The two men shook hands.

The Harbinger offered no resistance. He knew his faith was strong, but still he flinched as the jet swept toward his face.

When it passed, leaving him unmarked, he struck outward with the hilt of his sword. His startled opponent's head snapped backwards, and he crumpled to the ground.

It sat in the midst of lights. These computers were a new thing to it, but they were easy enough to understand.

In a way, this was like hunting, but on a grand scale. It would not feel the flesh and blood itself, but the slaughter would be beyond its most pleasurable dreams.

Engrossed in the planning, it occasionally managed to forget the thing in its brain.

A human pushed through the glowing wall of information, maps and numbers sliding over his clothes.

With a gesture, it caused the displays to move away from the disturbance. They slid into the remaining empty spaces, shrinking to fit their new homes.

"General, I have a proposal for you."

The Harbinger's guest stirred, then groaned. He sat up, rubbing his jaw and looking around.

There was little enough for him to see. The room was bare save for the ring of fire that confined him. The Harbinger liked it that way. He had spent considerable time and effort removing all the technological wonders that had been included with the room. The wall displays could not be disabled, but at least they could display images of the wall's surface.

The Harbinger stood. The other's gaze followed him as he walked about the room, but he remained silent.

"What is your name?"

The other paused, then shrugged. "Devendra Chalal. Your tag?"

"I am the Harbinger, Herald of the King of the Fire Pagoda."

Chalal snorted. "And your tag when you're not in the sims?"

The Harbinger said nothing.

"Right. You could've wiped me. You didn't. What do you want?"

"I wish to speak with your master."

"No luck. Don't have one. I'm a sole proprietor. No boss, no stockholders."

The Harbinger's mouth was a thin line. "And the reason you chose to attempt my destruction...?"

"Didn't like you. Still don't. You ask personal questions, and privacy's not cheap."

"I do not think I asked any questions about you. Whose privacy was it that I invaded? I would speak with him."

The other paused for many heartbeats, then shrugged sullenly, "Her."

"Dr. Boatman? There's somebody waiting for you."

Boatman sighed. He handed his coat to an assistant and turned to his secretary. She was a pretty blonde girl, a nice change from the Asians who were so common around here. "I am just back from a long trip. Right now, I want dinner, a bath, and bed. He smiled "Get rid of him, and if you like, you can join me in all three."

She blushed, and stammered slightly, then touched her headset. "Mr. Holz? I'm afraid that --"

"Wait. Him. I want to speak with him now."

The Harbinger shifted nervously under the woman's gaze. In his long service, he had been this discomfited only in the presence of his liege's siblings.

Chalal had made it clear that she did not rule here. She was respected. Her advice was followed. But she did not rule.

The Harbinger did not see the difference.

His gaze flickered over the contents of the room. The decoration seemed vaguely familiar. It was sparer and more elegant, but its aesthetic was reflected everywhere in this society.

There was no doubt. She ruled here.

At last, she broke the silence. "You've put in a lot of work to find me. Why?"

"I am the herald of Li Ting, the King of the Fire Pagoda. He knows you are new to the Secret War, and he offers to make alliance."

She smiled. It was a predator's smile. "And what does he have to offer us? I'm told he's more like a spark than a blaze these days."

The Harbinger stiffened slightly. "It is true that he wields less power than once he did. However, he is yet a mighty power in the Netherworld, and the Netherworld is the crossroads of the Secret War. He has also spent many years opposing those who are now your enemies. However capable your spies, they cannot possess the depths of experience he brings."

The bargaining began.

Critical Shift: Rebirth

jlighton — Tue, 17 May 2011 23:25:15 GMT

The Critical Shift story is done in primary writing, and mostly done in revision. I'm not posting it all now to keep from overflowing people's friend lists, but expect a chapter every twoish days until it's done. (There may be delays due to internet problems at home.)

I didn't mean to wait so long between posting the first chapter and the second, but I was shorter on time than usual this past week.

It dreamed.

It dreamed of days past, when it had been supreme, when it had hunted the tormented ghosts of the Underworld. It dreamed of the pleasure of the hunt, and the torments it inflicted when it inevitably captured its prey.

It dreamed of the times when foolish sorcerers summoned it to the Overworld. The hunts they set it upon then were always more enjoyable, the flesh of the prey much sweeter.

And always, the sorcerers eventually made a mistake in their arrogance, and their flesh was the sweetest of all, their screams the most pleasing music it had ever heard.

The Harbinger walked the streets of the new future. He sought somebody. He knew not who, but he was sure that he would find them here.

He was one man, and a stranger in this world. Alone, he had little hope of finding the information he needed to learn.

And so, he walked the streets, away from the brightest lights, the immense spires, and the conglomerations of merchants hawking their wares. Here, it was not so different from the Netherworld. The lost and forgotten of this time were similarly desperate, victim to predators they had little protection from, and desperate enough to grab hold of any little hope dangled before them.

All that he needed was the right spark.

A flickering light drew his attention. He approached as quietly as he could. A man sat by a small fire, watching the flames. He became aware of the Harbinger and watched him suspiciously, one hand resting upon a metal bar.

This one was not yet broken.

The Harbinger crouched down opposite the man, examining him across the flames.

"You want to share my fire?" said the man, "What do you have to share?"

The Harbinger smiled as reassuringly as he was able. "I have some food," he said, "But I do not need your fire." He extended his closed hand, then opened it.

A small flame burned silently in his palm. "For I carry my own with me."

He watched the man watch the flame. Yes, he would be the first disciple.

It could not dream forever. Eventually, it had to awaken.

This last time, it had been summoned not by a giggling eunuch, but by a group of small, timid men. They had bound it and commanded it into this tank, where they were changing it, cutting away parts of its body and adding strange new things to replace them.

It floated in the tank and waited. Eventually, they would make a mistake.

They always did.

He looked at the man standing in his living room like he'd just found a cockroach in his breakfast cereal.

"I should just kill you right now."

If Dr. Boatman was worried his host might carry out the threat, he concealed it well. He waited as the man continued.

"I thought I was done with it all. I'd survived more than thirty years in BuroMil, and then I woke up one morning and the whole sick system I'd fought and bled for was gone like some bad nightmare.

"I have a daughter and a grandson. People look at me and see a respected security consultant; they don't wonder about all the atrocities I've committed.

"I don't remember any of it, but it's still a damn sight better than what I had before, or anything you could offer me.

"I wasn't even on your side! When you two shits started going at each other, I stuck with Bonengel. I led the commando unit that almost got you. What madness possessed you to come to me?"

Curtis Boatman waited to let him calm down.

"You were one of the best, Holz. If I'm going to impose order on this world, I need men like you."

"I've seen the news. You've got plenty of abominations, and they're the ones causing most of the disorder. You don't need me."

"Abominations are shock troops. I need soldiers to create order once resistance is broken, and I need men to lead them."

"And why should I help you and your monsters? This is far from a perfect world, but you're not the one to improve on it."

"You know it's not as easy as that. You're no fool. You do your research when people try to hire you. You think you have some idea of what they're like, but it's worse than you know. You've only seen the fringes.

"This world places no value on loyalty, or honor, or law, or on anything but personal advancement. It's rotten to the core, but it puts a pretty face on it. There are monsters here as great as anything the CDCA ever made, and they're human.

"I'm not going to claim I'm anything but what I am. I don't even have Johann's mad idealism to hide behind. I'm nothing more than the evil you know.

"Whether you join me or not, I'm winning. There's no organized opposition. You can join me, and possibly influence the new regime, or you can keep your head down and hope it turns out for the best."

Boatman pushed the heavy bag he'd brought toward Holz.

"Whether or not you sign up, I thought you might appreciate having your old weapon of choice, just in case you need it."

Boatman turned and walked toward the door. "You have my info if you want it. Good day. My best wishes to your family."

After he left, Holz sat down heavily in a chair. He reached into the bag and pulled out the first Helix Ripper he'd seen since the world changed.

He sat there for a long time, staring at it.

It came alert as the fluid drained from the tank. This was new. Never before had they left it awake when taking it out of the tank. Was this the inevitable mistake?

It would wait. It would see.

The tank hissed open. It climbed out, testing its new body parts. They were unfamiliar, but they would suffice to slaughter all of its tormentors.

As soon as the thought entered its mind, burning waves of pain engulfed it. Overwhelmed, it sank to its knees.

Through the pain, it heard the humans speaking.

"It appears that the neural grepper is functioning. Inform Doctor Boatman that we are ready to begin training."

As the pain ebbed, it decided that it would be an obedient tool.

For now.

He watched as his student reached toward the flame, then paused.

He inhaled, ready to offer encouragement, but the man suddenly plunged his hand into the flame and held it there for over a minute.

When he finally withdrew, there was an expression of awe on his face.

He was ready.

"Very good. Now, walk with me. There are things I wish to know."

"Is it ready?"

"We believe so, Doctor, it passes all the aptitude tests with ease. Other abominations obey it without question, and it shows no signs of rebellion."

"But you're worried."

The scientist paused, then said, in a barely audible voice, "Yes."

"Go on."

"There are good reasons we rarely made intelligent abominations before. They hate us. They want us to die. This one... it's smarter than any of us. It's smarter than you. 'Playing with fire' is a gross understatement."

"I understand your concerns. The control regimen was designed with them in mind. I believe that it is more than adequate. Activate... what did you name it?"

"Gog. General Gog."

"How... evocative. Well, if we want to pick up the pieces, we need to break things first. Let slip the Gogs of war."

The scientist laughed half-heartedly and hurried out.

A voice spoke from behind Boatman. "I fear you have missed your true calling. You should have been a comedian."

Boatman turned slowly in his chair. "And you should have been a stage magician; you have the love of cheap theatrics."

Smythe sniffed indignantly.

Boatman ignored it. "Since you have time to eavesdrop, I assume your own part goes well?"

"Well enough. My unwitting puppets await their orders."

"Excellent. We shall keep them in reserve for now. Between the abominations and the nanotech outbreaks, we may never need them."

Boatman stood. "And now, I have an appointment I must keep."

Critical Shift: Genesis

jlighton — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:04:48 GMT

Now, on to the last of the fiction I had lying around in some form.

Starters just weren't financially feasible at the time, so Critical Shift was another booster set.

The story was to establish the Syndicate and their world. I had tentatively broken it up into six sections, but only wrote the first three before I either bogged down or got distracted by other stuff that needed doing.

This is the only one of those three sections that didn't have anything significant added when I was finishing up, and I feel confident enough that I won't need to add anything that I'm willing to start posting. (I haven't finished the final section, but all the plot's in place, with only some minor segments left to add.)

"You're a hard man to find, Doctor."

Curtis Boatman snapped awake. He jabbed his elbow into the ribs of the woman sleeping by his side. She would start awake and sit up, drawing the assassin's fire. He had survived two previous attempts in this way.

He was already rolling off the bed before he was even aware she hadn't reacted at all.

Still moving on instinct, he hit the floor and reached under the bed for the Helix Ripper he kept there.

He pulled his hand back in pain, sucking on his fingers.

Under the bed, there was only cold, airless space. He saw stars glittering in the darkness.

"Oh, please. If I were here to kill you, you would already be deceased."

A strange, ever-shifting geometric shape floating in the air began to glow with a cold, eerie light. Even this did not disturb the woman on the bed.

"My purpose is merely to talk. I think you will find what I have to offer most intriguing. But first, I have one demand...."

Curtis Boatman waited impassively.

"Put on some trousers."

Li Ting sprawled upon the throne of the Fire Pagoda, resting his head on his hand as he listened to the spy's report. He considered burning the man to ashes for sheer stupidity. Three weeks in the new juncture, and this was all he had learned?

Suddenly, his interest was piqued. He sat up.

"Repeat that."

The fool cleared his throat, "Yes, my lord. What I said was that advanced kung fu training is quite common, and many of the best warriors are enhanced with technology."

"Are you quite certain?"

"Yes, my lord," he rubbed his shoulder. "I witnessed it myself."

"Interesting," he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Leave me."

"But I haven't finished my --"

"Leave me."

The man hurried out.

For a long time, Li Ting sat in silence, lost in thought. Finally, he summoned another of his servants.

The man entered, and bowed deeply. "I am yours to command."

"Go to the new future. You will be my harbinger. I want the secrets of merging chi and technology. Steal it if you must, but we have much we can offer them in return. They are new to the Secret War, after all."

Curtis Boatman steepled his fingers and watched his visitor across the conference room table. Even for this hour, the Dao Biotech complex was strangely quiet. His furtive attempts to get a reaction from security had met with no response.

So he waited, and watched. The man was lean and sharp-featured, with a somewhat unruly head of blonde hair. When he spoke, it was in a tone of arrogance.

"No doubt, I have you at a disadvantage. Let me correct that. I am Geoffrey Smythe. I was --"

"You were Dr. Engel's personal assistant."

"I was nothing more than a glorified secretary! Even after I joined his conspiracy, I never received the credit my genius deserved!"

"So, you come to me."

Smythe's anger faded as rapidly as it had arisen. "Do not think I am here in some petulant fit of egotism."

Boatman folded his hands, his expression blank. "Of course not."

"No, despite the disrespect of my peers and intellectual inferiors, I knew which way the wind was blowing. Our power was waxing, and that of you and your other half was in rapid decline. You were too busy squabbling to even attempt to understand the threat we posed."

If he intended this to get a reaction, Boatman disappointed him. He leaned back in his chair and waited for Smythe to continue.

"But then everything changed. You no doubt think it merely the vagaries of the Secret War -- a new juncture opens, somebody takes feng shui sites, and history rewrites itself."

Boatman raised an eyebrow. "Please, enlighten me."

"In this case, we were the architects, so to speak, of our own downfall."

"Through our superior knowledge, we opened the new juncture -- not globally, but merely a single portal, through which we could travel undetected."

"That is where our brilliant leaders made their first mistake. The portal needed somebody to manage it. They had no shortage of viable candidates, myself included, but they chose Kallisti.

"Kallisti?"

"She took a new name upon joining us. You knew her as Dr. Markovic."

Boatman smiled slightly, "Ah, yes."

"They could not have made a worse choice. She is completely, completely..."

"Insane?"

"Of course she's insane! We're all insane! No, the word I was looking for was 'unpredictable'. Or perhaps 'unreliable'. No matter -- she is both. When a problem arose, she simply released control, allowing the juncture to open fully, and letting all the unwashed rabble in."

"And, without the advantage of secrecy, you lost out to some other organization?"

Smythe gave Boatman a contemptuous glance. "Of course not. We still had the advantage -- we had built an organization in that time, one nobody suspected of involvement in the Secret War."

"No, our failing was that of impatience. Despite our advantages, some of us were not content to proceed sensibly, Kallisti, Rhys, and Primus hatched a new plan."

"Another alias. Who was this one when they were in the CDCA?"

"Not exactly an alias -- names have power, so he decided not to have one."

Boatman sighed. "However you describe it, he used to have a name. What was it?"

Now Smythe sighed, "You really don't understand," he said pityingly, "He has no name. It no longer exists. Nobody knows it anymore."

"I... see. No matter. Go on. What was this new plan?"

"In the right place, at the right time, all the world's chi would flow though a single point. They devised a method that would allow somebody there to attune to all the world's feng shui at once. Of course, you see the obvious flaw in this plan?"

"The wrong person found out?"

"That and worse! They needed certain magical artifacts to make this work. They used dupes to retrieve them! And then they didn't kill them!"

Boatman shook his head. "Astounding. So who controls the new juncture now?"

"I have no idea. We never got a report back. Does it matter?"

"Not in the short term. Anyway, why did you come to see me?"

"I have no patience to wait while we rebuild our power base. You are well-positioned here. I feel we have much to offer each other."

"Oh?"

"You have an organization in this juncture. You are rounding up your abominations."

"Yes, I am. Why do I need you?"

"This juncture is completely ignorant of the existence of powers such as mine. They have no defenses, no safeguards. I found you, after all, despite your security measures."

"True. I admit to some curiosity. How did you do that?"

"You have certain habits that make you quite predictable. In this juncture, I have a sister. A strange experience... I've never had one before." He paused, seemingly lost in thought.

After a moment, he resumed, "It was simplicity itself to bend her to my will. Then you did most of my work for me."

Smythe smiled, "I've become quite... fond of her, but if you like her, she's yours. She is no longer useful to me."

Boatman shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "No, that's quite all right."

"Very well. With my intellect and powers backing your resources, you should have little difficulty in seizing control of this juncture from whatever masters it may possess."

"And you would presumably be my equal partner in the enterprise?"

"No, no, I am not so ambitious. I am quite content to be a junior partner."

"Of course you are."

"After all, it will take considerable time to raise a new cadre of Purists and overthrow you."

Boatman paused. "Well, how can I refuse such a generous offer?"

He extended his hand.

Oh yeah…

jlighton — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:24:42 GMT

That's why I hate yard work so much. I did 5-6 hours of it today, and am now more tired than a very tired thing that's full of tires.

And it's still only May.

Shadowfist fiction: The Ballad of Jia Baoyu

jlighton — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:17:04 GMT

The set after TFT turned out not to be Critical Shift as we had planned. Critical Shift was going to be a new starter set, but that fell through. We reorganized the design team, and decided to do a Western-themed set first, with the hopes that we'd still be able to do CS as a starter set.

So, we took some of the cards left from CS playtest, mixed in new Western-themed cards, and made Shurikens and Six-Guns. (Yeah, yeah, Shurikens are Japanese, and Shadowfist is primarily Chinese-based.)

The set was still set post-Critical Shift. The main story, which was never written, was more of the usual: bad guys try to Take Over the World, Dragons stop them, etc. IIRC, Braz volunteered to write it, but that didn't happen. This story intersects it slightly (technically just after the main story's end), and should tell you everything you need to know. (I never released it because I was waiting for the main story to be finished. You'd think I eventually would've figured out that that trick never worked.)

This story was an idea of Gavin's that we thought was pretty cool, so we tossed a few references into the set, but nobody actually wanted to write it. Eventually, I decided I was capable of it, and had some ideas about how the plot could work, so I took a shot at it. It also ended up providing some background on one of the random "what's their story?" characters who occasionally pop up in Shadowfist sets, and some early setup for a future set's story, which will now never happen. I also wanted to work the set's Purists into it, just to provide some explanation for them, but they didn't have an actual purpose, so they didn't make it in.

This is the next-to-last piece I have, but the last one (the Critical Shift story) is a big one, and still unfinished, although I'm making good progress. (Especially now that I'm done with Portal 2.) It's broken up into six parts, but I don't want to post any until it's done, since I may need to make more changes to the early parts as the later parts develop.

In the small, bare room in the Temple of Boundless Meditation, Jia Baoyu lay waiting for sleep to come to him. In one hand, he clutched a small crystal pendant. He knew that if it were discovered and its purpose understood, things would not go well for him -- the masters of the Guiding Hand are wise and righteous, but they are not particularly understanding or forgiving.

He also knew that, if he were captured by those he came to the Temple to report on, the consequences would be far more dire, both for him and for the one who gave it to him. The Architects of the Flesh do not even understand the concept of forgiveness.

He may have known all of this, but it did not matter enough. It was difficult to be so far away from her for so long. The first time he came to the Temple to report after they had met, he could barely sleep at all.

After they were reunited, she gave him the pendant. At first, it bothered him deeply -- the idea of using the Architects' science to tear out a piece of one's soul and encase it in a piece of jewelry did not sit well with him.

During the day, it still bothered him from time to time; but at night, having her presence nearby comforted him, helping him to sleep.

The next day, Jia left the Temple early. He had new orders from his masters -- a new juncture had opened, and he was to give priority to learning all he could of the Architects' plans for taking that new juncture. He would do so, but he worried that Jessica, in her attempts to aid his mission, would get caught -- while she was both brilliant and clever, she was in CDCA research, with little direct access to military intelligence.

Days later, as he stepped through the portal from the Netherworld, he felt a moment of fear -- he could never be sure that the portal remained undiscovered, that there were no troops waiting for him on the other side. The portal they had once used had been discovered, and no fewer than five of their agents had been trapped before the fact was learned. If all five had not managed to make the ultimate sacrifice upon their capture, the Hand's entire intelligence network might have been shattered.

There was nobody waiting this time. Jia began to breathe easily again. Once he was away from the portal, he was as safe as he could be in this alien time. His papers were good, and he blended well into the crowd. Bearing reports to his superiors was by far the most dangerous thing he did, but it had to be done. He only wished that he didn't have to be away from Jessica so long to do it.

It was early in the morning, so he stopped at the apartment that he shared with Chu before he reported to his job. While he must appear eager, appearing overly so could easily raise security's suspicions.

Besides, he wanted to take the time to get cleaned up before he saw her. He couldn't be sure that he would be assigned to her projects, but she usually managed to arrange it. Security almost certainly knew about them, but didn't care -- such things happened all the time. If anything, the obvious furtive activity helped conceal the rest of what they did.

As Jia stepped out of the hygiene unit, he nodded to Chu, who was sitting and eating breakfast. They exchanged a few quick signs, to indicate that all was well. They never spoke about their true mission -- there was too much of a chance that the apartment was bugged. Jia would brief Chu later.

For now, his thoughts turned to breakfast. As always, his stomach rebelled a bit on his first meal after his return from the Temple of Boundless Meditation. The fare there was simple, but it was natural, with none of the chemical aftertaste of the food of 2066.

As Jia ate, Chu finished his own meal and stood up. He reached out and wrapped his hands around Jia's throat. Jia reacted instantly, springing to his feet while spitting a mouthful of food into Chu's face. Chu barely noticed, and kept squeezing.

Try as he might, Jia found himself unable to break the grip. Chu was too big and too strong. In a fight, Jia's speed and skill might have helped, but they were of no use here.

Jia's legs betrayed him, and he dropped to his knees. Chu's eyes were like a corpse's; his face was a blank mask. As Jia's vision began to fade, he thought he saw a single tear roll down Chu's cheek. Chu spoke then, the first words he had said since Jia's return.

"I'm sorry."

He did not release his grip.

Jia's world shrank to nothing more than his need to breathe. Even the hands that were choking the life out of him seemed to fade away. There was nothing left but that need. That need, and the warm presence of something hanging over his heart.

From somewhere, Jia found a last reserve of strength. He tore the hands away from his throat. He did not stand, but leapt from his knees straight up into the air. He could not yet see; when he kicked out, he did so purely on instinct. He felt his foot strike Chu's chin, heard the snap of breaking bone.

He found himself standing over the spilled remains of his breakfast, gulping in the air. Despite the chemical taste, it was still the sweetest air he had ever breathed. His friend and comrade lay on the floor, his neck broken.

Jia felt strangely calm. He spent no time wondering if they had been discovered -- clearly they had. He did not spend long in wondering what had been done to Chu -- the masters of this world had many ways of breaking a man, ways that even the strongest would find it hard to resist. He knew what he had to do -- the procedures for a situation such as this had been drilled into him many years before. He must leave signals for other local agents, and escape immediately. If he could not escape, he must die to prevent what he knew from being learned.

At this point, his thoughts strayed from their appointed track. Jessica. Had she already been arrested? He must warn her if not, and rescue her if so. Nothing else was important to him any more. He would still leave most of the appropriate signals for the others -- they were designed to be quick to make, but he could not afford to delay.

He glanced at the time. She would already be at the lab if she were still free. What would be suspicious enthusiasm in a lab tech was commendable diligence for a research scientist.

He resented every second the trip took him, but he dared not diverge from his routine more than he must. As he passed through the front gates, he prepared himself to kill the guards if they seemed at all suspicious, but they were no more alert than they ever were.

At the secure elevators, he pulled out a modified copy of Jessica's security card. His own would certainly summon security, and wouldn't get him into her lab, anyway. This one might, but they had never tested it due to the risk.

As the elevator doors closed on him, and the elevator began to descend to Jessica's lab, Jia felt a wave of nausea sweep over him. He closed his eyes and sought to recover his center. This was no time for nervousness.

After what felt like hours, the elevator finished its ascent, and Jia heard the doors slide open. He ceased his meditation and stepped forward, then stopped.

Everything was wrong.

The room was wrong -- not a subterranean lab, but an office high above a city. The city was wrong -- not the familiar blocky slabs of steel and plastic, but wilder, more varied structures of chrome and glass and neon. Jessica stood before him, but her clothes were wrong, her hair was wrong, and her eyes....

Her eyes were the most wrong of all. They were still her eyes, but Jia looked into them, and saw not a hint of recognition.

She spoke, he recognized the words, but they made no sense to him.

"Who are you?" she said. "How did you get into my private elevator?"

When he made no attempt to answer, her fingers lightly brushed the underside of her desk. She watched him warily.

A door behind him and to the left slammed open. He turned to see two men entering. They wore plain black clothes of an unfamiliar style. One had hands of metal, with blades that extended as naturally as a cat's claws. The other appeared normal at first, until Jia realized his eyes were not natural, but delicate orbs of metal.

They smoothly moved to either side of Jia. He fought them purely on reflex; his mind still refusing to comprehend what was happening. They were skilled at kung fu, but he was better. He left them moaning on the floor as he stumbled back into the elevator, stabbing uncomprehendingly at the controls. The doors slid smoothly closed.

As they did, he stared at her neck, searching vainly for the pendant he had given her, the one that matched his own.

Jia Baoyu walked blindly through the streets of a city, a city at once familiar and completely different. He pushed his way through crowds of people, and they pulled away from him. The rigid conformity of the Buro was gone, replaced with a wild diversity of appearance that rapidly blurred together into an undifferentiated mass. There was nothing about him that should have made him stand out, but they somehow knew that he did not belong here, that he had no business being in this place. This new world rejected him; it did not want him here.

It was early evening when he found himself standing in front of an arcade of little stores, all selling devices that had no purpose. Some instinct made him enter. He walked past sellers of video displays one could implant in one's skin, of devices that could project images directly into one's eyes. He ignored all those and more.

In the back, there was a door. It had an electronic lock he had no idea how to operate; he kicked it open. He descended a set of stairs. The basement was divided into many small storage units; somehow he managed to find the one he sought. The portal was not obvious if one did not know where to look, but it was there.

Jia Baoyu sat down on the floor of the Netherworld, and he wept.

Eventually, he stood up again. He knew he should return to the Temple of Boundless Meditation and report what had happened. He knew he should vanish among the tunnels of the Netherworld, joining all the other refugees who had lost everything they had ever loved.

At the first fork in the tunnel, he walked straight into an ambush.

He surveyed his opponents. Soldiers from the Ice Pagoda, perhaps thirty of them, all armed with automatic weapons. He heard a woman's voice:

"Surrender, and you will not be harmed."

He leapt into a flying kick at the closest soldier. He felt the bullets tearing into his flesh.

Death was a far colder thing than he expected it to be.

Awareness slowly returned through a haze of pain. He could not focus his eyes. He tried to sit up, but the pain stopped him almost instantly. A moan escaped his lips.

He heard low voices nearby, then receding footsteps. After a time, he heard a different set of footsteps approaching. A figure leaned over him, but he could make out nothing about it.

He felt a needle slide into his arm, and a wave of relief spread from that point. The pain was stil there, but it was muted and bearable.

Slowly, everything came into focus. He was still somewhere in the Netherworld. The figure leaning over him was revealed to be a young woman, with dark hair and pale skin. She was very beautiful, but far from the most beautiful woman he had seen.

She began to change the dressings on his wounds. Her hands were cold, and where they passed, the pain from each injury seemed slightly less.

At long last, she finished with her task. He heard the scraping sound of a chair being dragged to his bedside, and she sat down. With great difficulty, he turned his head to look at her. She sat there for several minutes, watching him, her chin resting in one hand.

Eventually, she spoke. "I'm Anastasia. What's your name?"

He knew he should say nothing, refuse to answer any questions at all, but he could see no harm in this one. "Jia Baoyu."

"We were sent to watch this portal, to capture and question anybody escaping the juncture. I'm sorry my men shot you, but you left them with little choice."

"I know."

She leaned forward slightly. "We need to know what it's like in that juncture now. You're not from there originally, are you? We've caught a few natives who found the portal, but they weren't very helpful -- they don't have enough perspective. Will you tell me what you saw?"

Jia closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly.

She remained for a while longer, saying nothing more, but eventually she departed.

His pain returned, and one of the soldiers give him another injection. He was efficient and competent, but not as gentle. Jia slept, and dreamed of Jessica.

Each day, Anastasia returned, tended to his injuries, and asked him questions. At first, he continued his silence. He had been trained extensively to resist interrogation, but friendly questioning by a young woman, barely more than a girl, was not a technique his superiors had anticipated.

Eventually, he decided there was no harm in telling her what he had seen. The questionings became conversations. She shared what their other captives had told them. He told her something of his youth and his training in the Shaolin Temple. She shared stories about growing up in the Ice Pagoda, although she was always evasive about her connection to the Ice Queen. He told her about his mission, and about Chu. The only subject he remained silent on was Jessica.

Meanwhile, Jia was healing much faster than he would have expected. He was watched, but not restrained. In weeks, he was taking a few tentative steps, leaning on Anastasia for support. She was far stronger than she appeared to be. Not long after that, he was able to walk unaided. He was allowed freedom of movement around the camp, but the soldiers would not permit him outside of its boundaries.

One day, he overheard Anastasia arguing with the captain of her soldiers. The next day, when she came to see him, he said, "Your captain is right. I've already told you everything you wanted to know. Why haven't you moved on, with or without me?"

She smiled sadly. "There is still one question I want the answer to. The day we first found you, why were you so eager to die?"

Jia was silent for a long time. Then the answers came spilling out with his tears. He told her about Jessica, how he met her, everything they had shared, all the risks they had faced together. He told her about the pain of looking into her eyes, and knowing that she no longer knew him.

Anastasia said nothing at all; when he had run out of things to say, she quietly left. Jia did not notice she was gone for some time afterwards.

She came again the next day, bringing with her the crystal pendant Jessica had given him. She sat down opposite him, and slowly began to speak:

"I think... there is still some hope for you. Not long ago, Pi Tui found again the man she had loved, who she had thought lost forever when her world was swept away. She restored his memories with her magic. With this... I think she could do the same."

Jia shook his head. "Why should she? While she may be the kindest of the Four Monarchs, what is there to gain in helping me?"

"I will not lie to you. There will be a price. Would you enter into the Ice Queen's service, serving as her agent among your people? Would you betray them if she asked it of you?"

Jia thought for a time before responding. While there was never any doubt what his answer would be, it was difficult for him to admit it to himself.

"Yes," he said softly. "I would."

The trip to the Ice Pagoda was not long. He had seen it before from a distance when travelling to and from the Temple of Boundless Meditation, but had never expected to find himself within. It was made entirely of ice, shaped into vaulted ceilings and delicate spires and domes. He found himself surprised by the variations in color possible in the material.

Despite its construction, it was far less cold than he expected. There were carpets and wall hangings, many intricately woven and depicting fantastic scenes from the Ice Queen's long-forgotten world. Many uncovered surfaces may have had the texture of ice, but felt warm to the touch. Everything seemed slightly unreal.

It was strangely silent. It was far from empty, but the inhabitants seemed quiet and subdued.

When they were ushered into the throne room, the Queen was not there. They were approached by an elderly man dressed in formal robes of office. He spoke quietly with Anastasia for several minutes. When she returned, her face was grim.

"The Queen's husband is dead. The news reached her only yesterday. I will be allowed to speak with her tonight, but I do not know if she will aid you now."

Jia allowed himself to be led to a room where he could rest. When food was brought to him, he ate, but did not really taste it. He slept fitfully, and dreamed of her.

He was awakened by a light touch on his arm. Instantly, he rolled off the far side of the bed, and into a defensive stance. The sudden movement brought painful reminders of his recent injuries, and he swayed slightly.

A woman stood beside the bed. It was too dark to see her face, but when she spoke, it was with Anastasia's voice.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." She gestured, and the room lit up with a cold light. She looked very tired. She clutched a scroll in one hand.

"My aunt will not help you. I think her grief blinds her to your potential value. I... retrieved this scroll from her personal library. There is enough in it that another sorcerer could cast the spell. It would be within my skill... but the strength required to rend the veils of time is far beyond me, or any other sorcerer here."

Jia sagged. "Then there is no hope."

She closed her eyes. "Perhaps... there may be. My aunts and uncles are all strong enough, but the others are far more dangerous to approach. Two of them... the price they would ask of you would be too high."

Jia started to speak, but she silenced him.

"Huan Ken... Huan Ken might be persuaded to aid you. He is temperamental, unpredictable, and not given to being charitable, but his pride can be used against him. However, he may simply kill you outright for your impertinence in asking."

"I cannot say you have but the faintest of hopes. Please, do not go."

Jia shook his head. "I cannot live without her. If this is all the hope I have, then it must be enough."

She did not look at him as she left the room. "Very well. Sleep now, and I will do what I can to aid you in your task."

Early the next morning, she awakened him. He did not think she had slept at all. She brought with her the scroll, some food, and a map. On the map, she had marked a particular portal to Jia's own juncture.

"The Ice Queen has spies in the Thunder King's court, and they report that he is bringing weapons from other junctures, and planning to use them to seize important sites in the western portion of the North American continent. He likely does not have enough troops or materials to succeed, but that is where he will be. This portal will take you to that continent, but finding him may be difficult."

At the gates of the Ice Pagoda, she spoke again. "Please, do not go. I fear you are only going to your death."

"As do I, but I have no choice."

She took his pendant in her hand, and spoke words in an ancient language. When she released it, it felt freezingly cold against his chest, though its normal warmth soon returned.

"A small charm, to bring you luck. If all else fails, challenge the Thunder King to single combat. He will not refuse."

"He has never been defeated, but if you can evade him for long enough, he may tire, and you might have a small chance."

Jia thanked her.

As he descended the steps outside, he turned, but the gate had already closed behind him.

The old man puffed slowly on his pipe. Jia waited patiently. It had taken him many weeks to get this far. One-Eye Chan was the master of the Hand's intelligence operations in this place. Jia knew all the right signs, all the code words, but the old man did not trust him. Jia was not part of the normal order of things. This meant that he was a traitor, an impostor, or, just possibly, a man with important orders that could not wait.

Chan blew rings of smoke. "Very well, let us hear what you have come all this way to tell us."

Jia felt sick to his stomach as he laid out what he knew of the Thunder King's plans, and embellished where he knew too little. All he had done before might be forgiven, but this was was the true betrayal -- to exploit the scarce resources of the Guiding Hand for his own selfish ends, perhaps to cause the wasteful deaths of many of his comrades.

The old man stroked his chin thoughtfully. "And what is this to us? We have no love for the Thunder King, but we have far less for the lords of this era. If he becomes a thorn in their side, we only prosper. What does it gain us to intervene?"

Jia was ready for this. "We prosper only indirectly if he draws off their strength. The Perfect Master desires more. Whichever side ends up with these feng shui sites, they will be thinly held at first. With decisive action, we may snatch some of them away from both parties without them even realizing our involvement. I am to scout out the Thunder King's movements. You are to evaluate my reports, and use your judgement as to what sites are most worth our attention."

The old man set down his pipe. "Again, the Perfect Master demonstrates his wisdom. We will provide you with a guide, and with any other aid you may request."

Three days later, Jia waited at the outskirts of the city for his guide, shivering slightly in the pre-dawn chill. He still found it hard to believe that they had believed him.

He heard horses approaching, and turned to see a man leading two of them. He walked with the bearing of a Shaolin Monk, but wore the clothes of a Westerner, and carried a gun at his side. He stopped. "Jia Baoyu?"

Jia nodded.

He extended his hand, "Wang Yi. One-Eye sent me. Do you know how to ride?"

Jia shook his head slightly, "I suppose I can learn."

Yi sighed.

Learning to ride a horse was more difficult than Jia had expected, but his determination to succeed eventually prevailed, and they began to make better time.

They traveled through a wilderness far vaster and more barren than anything Jia had experienced. He had spent so long in the tunnels of the Netherworld and the overcrowded cities of the future that he sometimes felt lost in the open spaces.

The first time he looked up at the night sky, he realized that he had forgotten what the stars looked like. For a long time, he lay on his back, simply gazing up at them in wonder.

He was trying to find the words he would use to describe the sight to Jessica before he realized what he was doing.

He lay there a long time, his tears blurring the stars into invisibility, before sleep finally came to him.

They travelled for many weeks. Yi would find railroad tracks, then follow them until he found a group of Chinese laborers working on them. They provided Yi with a considerable amount of news, which slowly led them towards the Thunder King.

Neither man was eager to talk of their past, but Jia learned something of Yi's during that time. Yi had once been a Shaolin Monk, but had been thrown out of the Temple. Jia did not ask the reason.

Yi had travelled to the Americas many years ago, and served the Guiding Hand since then.

When the conversation turned to his own past, Jia lied easily, creating a story that made his role in the fictitious plan believable. He often felt that Yi believed little of what he was told, but he gave no indication.

Eventually, they no longer needed to ask the railroad workers for news of the Thunder King. His armies plowed a crimson furrow across the land.

Now Jia chafed at the role he had assumed. Every minute he spent assessing the feng shui sites the Thunder King had seized was another minute that his quarry moved away from him.

He tried to console himself with the knowledge that the Hand would profit from his deception, but he could not bring himself to care.

As they followed the trail, the carnage became fresher. Now the railroad workers were being used to convey their intelligence back to the Hand.

They saw the carrion birds long before they reached the site of the battle. The dead were everywhere. The ground was scarred and blasted by lightning.

Yi looked solemnly over the battlefield. "I believe our task may be at an end."

Jia's heart sank at the thought. "Perhaps not. If enough of the Thunder King's forces survived, he may continue. We should attempt to find out."

They searched the edges of the valley until they found a trail that could only be the King's.

They rode hard all the rest of that day, and into the night, until they came to an encampment. Looking down from a rise, Jia could make out Thunder Knights around the campfires.

At long last, he had reached his goal. He dismounted, and was about to descend into the camp when he found himself halted by a firm grip upon his shoulder.

He turned. Yi's face was grim. "I had long since realized that your true mission was not what you claimed it was. Now, I must know: are you obeying orders that you coud not share, or is your goal to betray us?"

Jia could not meet Yi's eyes. "No, I have no secret mission. I set this into motion for my own selfish reasons. Please, let me go."

Yi scowled, "Before I bring you back to answer for your betrayal, I wish to know why."

Jia paused for what seemed like an eternity before he spoke. He had failed, he would be executed for his crimes, but telling the truth after lying for so long was like lifting a great weight from his shoulders.

By the time he finished, he was in tears. At first, he did not even notice that Yi had released his grip. When he did, he looked up questioningly.

"You never asked me why I was thrown out of the Temple," Yi said slowly. "Her name was Wu Lin."

Without another word, Yi climbed back on his horse. As he rode away, Jia heard him call out "Good luck."

Jia slowly moved into the camp. The Thunder Knights were nursing their wounds and guarding against a large-scale assault. They were not guarding against a solitary intruder.

Finding the King was not difficult. He was meeting with some of his advisors in front of a large tent.

Steadying himself, Jia stepped into the firelight. The conversation died suddenly, and the assemblage looked at him in surprise and curiosity. After a moment, one of them rose, resting a hand upon his sword. "Who are you, and why are you here?" he demanded.

Jia ignored him. Approaching the King, he dropped to one knee in supplication. "Mighty King, I seek a boon that only the greatest of the Four Monarchs can grant."

The King looked at him like a normal man would regard an insect. "Be gone from my sight, or suffer the consequences."

Jia rose, attempting to hide his fear. "If you will not hear me, then I must make you hear me. I challenge you to single combat."

Waves of laughter washed over Jia. He gave no reaction.

Eventually, the laughter faded. Chuckling, the King rose. "The men could use some entertainment. Make the battle ring ready!"

Soon enough, he was facing the King across a crude torchlit arena. Every survival instinct he had told him to run away. Only the thought of Jessica kept him from freezing in raw terror. Without even realizing he was doing it, he clutched at his pendant for reassurance.

The fight began. The King moved rapidly, torchlight shining on his rippling muscles. Jia focussed only on avoiding the King's grasp.

The King was far quicker than Jia had expected, but Jia was still faster. He leaped away whenever the King was close. The spectators jeered loudly, but he ignored them. He kept watching the King, seeking an opening.

He was shoved from behind, and fell to his knees before the King. He looked up in time to see a fist smashing toward his head. He barely managed to roll out of the way, and he felt the ground shake at the force of the blow.

Now more careful of the audience, he continued to evade the King. Fifteen minutes passed. Jia felt his strength flagging, but the King showed no signs of tiring, only of impatience.

Another ten minutes passed. The King's amusement had long departed. The jeers of the audience had faded. When Jia leapt away again, he thought he heard a snicker from within the crowd.

"Enough!" roared the King. "I am tired of your mockery, you pathetic grasshopper!"

He raised an arm, and the wind began to rise. Lightning flared around his hand, and arced from there to Jia, engulfing him.

To his amazement, Jia realized that he was unharmed. Lightning continued to flow from the King into Jia's pendant, leaving him unscathed. The King's expression changed from anger, to surprise, to horror. He was clearly attempting to end the spell, but was unable to do so. He sank to his knees, and the energy continued to flow out of him and into the pendant.

At last, the connection ended. The onlooking crowd was silent. The King collapsed, sagging like an old man. His aides rushed to his side. His hair had turned white, and his muscles had instantly atrophied.

Jia did not understand what had happened, but he turned and fled. No one attempted to stop him -- they were all rushing to aid their King.

Still in shock, he fled back to his horse. As he rode away, he examined the pendant. It was glowing slightly, and was warmer than normal, but it seemed to be undamaged.

Jia rode through the night, clutching the pendant as he sought to return to the Netherworld.

After a week, he returned to San Francisco, and slipped through the portal there.

His return to the Ice Pagoda was mostly uneventful, and the guards at the gates admitted him. He was escorted to an antechamber, and told to wait.

After perhaps ten minutes, Anastasia rushed into the room, still wrapping herself in a robe. "Jia! You're alive! What happened? Did you...?" She looked at him anxiously.

Haltingly, Jia told her what had happened when he found the Thunder King. When he finished, he looked at her questioningly. "What happened? What did you do?"

"There was little hope that he would aid you, but he could be tricked. I placed a spell on your pendant that would steal his magic if he cast a spell upon you. All you needed to do was provoke him until he would seek to destroy you with sorcery, instead of his might in combat."

She dropped her gaze, and her voice faded. "Please... Forgive me for deceiving you, but I felt it was best if you did not know..."

"I'm sorry."

There was a long silence. Finally, Jia spoke. "Does this... can you use the power to cast the spell?"

"Yes, I believe so. It will be difficult, but I had the skill already. Now I have the power as well."

"Then there is nothing that needs forgiving."

She smiled faintly. "We should go to the gate where I first found you. It would be... wise if I did not cast the spell within my aunt's domain."

She looked thoughtful. "I can be ready to travel within the hour."

They reached the portal without incident. Anastasia's guards deterred anyone who might have sought to accost them.

Upon reaching the portal, they made camp. Anastasia secreted herself in a side cavern, and insisted on being alone while she performed the spell.

Many hours passed. Jia wavered between optimism and despair. He tried to sleep, but was unable to do so.

Finally, after sixteen hours, Anastasia emerged from the cavern. She leaned against the wall, exhausted. Her hand shook as she returned the pendant to him. He felt a chill as her fingers brushed against his.

The pendant felt no different. Jia's heart sank. "Did it...?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes. If it is placed around her neck, she will remember everything from her past life. I cannot promise how she will react."

Jia clutched the pendant to his chest, an expression of joy on his face. "Thank you! Is there anything...?"

She shook her head slightly, "No. There is nothing I would ask of you."

Anastasia watched silently as Jia Baoyu turned and hurried through the portal.

He never looked back.

Shadowfist fiction: Critical Shift - Shock the Monkey

jlighton — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:53:33 GMT

Another one of the stories I wrote to show the changes made by the Critical Shift; this time focusing on the Jammers and their fundamental dilemma in the wake of the events of TFT.

This is the last of those. There was another one focusing on the Reascended, but it didn't work. I considered reworking it and interleaving it with the rest of the main Critical Shift story, but nothing came of that, either.

The Battlechimp Potemkin looked at the assembled throng before him. They were nervous; they knew something had happened, but nobody was sure what. Rumors were running wild throughout the Jammers.

It was time to put the rumors to rest.

As he stepped to the front, the crowd quieted. He began to speak; all the amplifiacation he needed was already built-in to his body.

"My compatriots. No, my friends. Today is a great day, a day that will be remembered forever."

They were completely silent. He had them in the palm of his hand. This was important. Those here would spread his words to the rest of the Jammers.

"The Buro has fallen. No, the Buro has never existed -- the forces of chi that they used to enforce their tyrrany have turned on them, and erased them from history, to be remembered only by we who fought against them so long."

He paused to let the cheering die down.

"But this is only a battle in our greater struggle. We cannot be complacent. The Buro were never the true enemy. The true struggle has always been against the tyranny of the chi itself, and against all who would use it!"

The cheering had died down completely now, but it had been replaced by murmuring among his audience. He needed to regain their enthusiasm.

"Now, while all the chi-ters are still reeling, now is the time to strike!"

The murmuring was growing louder. Even some of his fellow simians were joining in.

"We are ready for this day! We can cripple our enemies with a series of lightning strikes! Remember our motto! Blow things up! Blow things up! Blow things up!"

The audience was silent. After a long pause, one of the gorillas stood.

Potemkin managed to suppress a grin. It was Silverback, the one he was grooming to replace him should anything go wrong. Silverback could get the crowd back.

His deep voice rolled over the assembled Jammers.

"And where does it end? The Buro falls, and the battle continues. Their replacements will fall, and the battle will still continue. Is it even possible for us to win your war? Should we not have an achievable goal?"

He turned and marched away, with more than half of the assemblage following him. Even those who remained looked at Potemkin with questions in their eyes.

The Battlechimp could do nothing but stand and watch them go. For the first time since his awakening in the CDCA's labs, he was lost for words.

"But..."

Shadowfist fiction: Critical shift- Zheng Yi Quan

jlighton — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:55:36 GMT

Another one of the post-critical shift stories.

This one was to answer the big questions about how the Dragons winning the pulp juncture could actually work, and it does, although I'm not convinced anybody but me can actually see it. :)

Since it directly mentions the events of the TFT finale, I was waiting to post it until the TFT story was finished.

Once, there had been a village here, but the tides of war had passed this way too many times, and now little remained, save for a long-neglected shrine.

A man stepped through the doorway. If he was glad to escape the incessant rain outside, he displayed no sign.

Dropping his sodden cloak, he sat down before the altar, and bowed his head.

He was fit and muscular. Though his hair was beginning to grey, he was by no means old, but he was bent like an old man, or as if he carried the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

After a long silence, he began to speak, the first words he had spoken in months.

"Master Kar?"

"Master Kar, I need your advice. I can no longer see the path."

"Since you took me as your student, I have tried to do what is right, to hold to the principles you tought me."

"...Even if you did not always do so yourself."

"Since your death, I have done my best to lead in your place. There are others better suited, but they follow me. I think they only follow me because they once followed you."

"It is a great responsibility, but I hope that I have not disappointed you. When you taught me to continue the fight, you taught me well."

"...but you never taught me how to win."

"The war continues, as it always will, but we have won an unimaginable victory. All this time's chi flows through me."

"I fear that it will destroy me, and everything we fought for. I have seen what power does to those who hold it, and I fear that it will happen to me. I did not seek this power, but does it matter? The world caters to my desires -- how can I avoid being corrupted by them?"

"What do I do now?"

If the Great Grand Master of Furious Tiger Kung Fu, once the last living master of the Shadowfist, had any words of advice for his student, they went unheard.

After a long time of meditation, Zheng Yi Quan at last fell asleep.

He was awakened by cries of fear from outside. He emerged into the sunlight to see a mother and her son being accosted by a dozen soldiers.

It was over in seconds, the soldiers fallen or fleeing. She stepped back, still afraid, but the boy looked up at him with awe. He met the boy's eyes, and smiled.

No words were spoken, but somehow, he knew that this boy would some day follow in his footsteps.

It was not an answer to his question, but it was a start.

Shadowfist fiction: The New World

jlighton — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:35:12 GMT

This one just sort of happened.

I was heading home, probably from playing Shadowfist, when it popped into my head. I wrote a good portion of it right then and there. On my Palm Pilot. In Graffiti. (I don't think I had a keyboard for it yet. This was probably what induced me to get one.)

Or, as I've put it in the past: The main character crawled into my head, brutally murdered my muse, and told me to start writing.

This turned out to be the first of several stories introducing the post critical-shift world.

The hunter awoke, and instantly knew that somthing was wrong, that something had changed.

She was alone. Gone were the technicians, the foolish souls who called themselves her 'keepers', all the buzzing insects that normally surrounded her.

She decided that she liked it.

Her surroundings were strange. This was not the world she remembered. She assumed that the Buro and the CDCA were no more, that, as far as this world was concerned, they had never been.

She gazed out of the window, looking down upon the crowds of humans going through the motions of their pointless lives. They seemed to be unafraid. That would change soon enough.

The humans wore clothes, so she must do likewise to appear as one of them. She selected a translucent garment that covered little of her body and would not restrct her movements. She admired herself in a reflective surface, and was pleased. The garment enhanced her already great beauty, which would serve to attract some of the prey to her, and would calm any suspicions they may have.

There were other things: identification, transaction cards, holographic images of people she did not know, all the evidence of the past this new world had invented for her when it came into being. She left them behind; they were of no use to her.

She moved among the herd, passing as one of them. Often, she felt herself being observed, but she did not care. Let them watch until they could watch no more, until they turned their eyes away in horror.

As she moved among them, she satisfied her appetites as she saw fit. Mostly, she killed. She killed not just for food. She killed for the sheer joy of killing. She killed because she was a hunter, and they were her prey, and there was nothing they could do to stop her. She would leave a bloody scar across the face of this society, marking it forever as hers.

Eventually, she knew that the self-styled masters of this new world would have to act. But they were untested, unprepared for the likes of her.

When they finally tried to stop her, it was not with the overwhelming force that the Buro would have used. They proved their weakness. They sent one man.

No doubt they thought he would be sufficient. His nerves ran with the speed of lightning. He was far faster than she; he could have been a threat.

But he was young and arrogant, unable to see past her beauty. She showed him his heart before he died.

More came in the weeks that followed, always one or two at a time. A girl with mirrors over her eyes and razors in her fingertips. A man who attacked her with flying drones that obeyed his every thought. A pair of twins, who moved and fought as one. These and a dozen more. Some died, the rest fled. Always, the hunter was triumphant.

Finally, there was one who was smarter than the others. He had no desire to test himself against her. He announced his arrival with fire and thunder, an entire building destroyed because the hunter had been there.

The hunter was no longer there. She never slept twice in the same lair. She circled around the devastation until she found him, watching the rubble burn, waiting for her.

He was a cold, hard man, his skin was dark, and his arms were made of bright metal. His eyes were gone; there was metal and plastic in the place where they had been.

He turned to watch her even as she prepared to strike. He knew that she would be there. This one was too clever to be allowed to live.

She struck, he evaded. He fought defensively, giving ground as if he had an endless supply. She was stronger and faster, but there was little enough in it. If he hoped to tire her, he would be surprised - she had fed well the night before.

As he eventually must, he found himself backed against a wall. She feinted, suspecting a trick.

Jets of white-hot plasma sprayed from his hands. She dived aside, unharmed.

The hunter was not impressed. As he attempted to press his attack, she reached out, and removed one of his arms at the elbow.

He turned pale and staggered backwards, but made no sound. Toying with him now, she pretended to inspect the useless, broken thing she held, then let it drop to the ground.

He swept his remaining jet of plasma toward her, forcing her to take a step back. Then he turned and ran.

The hunter gave chase. Perhaps she could have caught him had she tried harder. She told herself she was being cautious, ready for another trick, but she knew that was a lie. She wanted to enjoy the hunt, to chase this broken man down until he had no choice but to face her.

As he ran, he gasped words to the air. The hunter did not listen. Nothing he had to say could matter to her.

Soon enough, he dived through the entrance to one of the office buildings that infested this world. A sterile monolith of steel and glass, it was unusual only in its plainness. It announced no name, bore no holographic displays, and failed entirely to proclaim the glories of the products of its masters.

There were guards at the door; she left them dying in pools of their own blood. Stepping inside, she found nobody.

Her quarry was gone, but his scent remained. It led her to an elevator, its doors inviting her in, to a certain trap.

The hunter no longer cared. She had seen what this world had to offer, and she did not fear it.

When the elevator's doors opened again, a number of floors above, no ambush awaited her. Almost disappointed, the hunter stepped silently into the empty hall. She could no longer smell her quarry's presence, but there was another, somewhere nearby.

The hunter snarled. She had been robbed of her prey. Those responsible would suffer before they died.

She stalked through the silent halls, past empty workshops and unused offices, until she found the one she was seeking.

The room was large, lit dimly by a glow around the edges of the ceiling. Two walls were composed enirely of windows, looking out on the light and activity of the city.

The room was empty, save for a single chair and its occupant. The woman turned her chair to face the hunter, and gracefully stood up. The moment seemed to pass slowly in time.

The woman was slim, dressed in a simple black gown. Silver hair flowed loosely past her waist. One arm was a graceful thing of metal. On the other, a serpentine dragon spiralled, drawn into her skin. The black-and-white circle of the Tao was similarly drawn about one eye. Her face was unlined, but she moved with the smoothness of long experience.

Their eyes met. The hunter recognized something in the other's gaze; not quite a kindred spirit, but something equally primal. The hunter had intruded upon this other's territory, and that was unforgiveable.

A strange feeling gnawed at the hunter's gut. She felt envious of the other, of her place in this world, even of her beauty.

Still, all that this other had would be gone once she was dead, and as for beauty, the form the hunter was wearing was just the mask that she wore to pass undetected among the prey.

As she shifted back to her true, beautiful, form, the hunter sprang across the room, hoping to take the other by surprise.

She did not. Her talons caught nothing but air as she crashed into the chair. Instantly, she was back on her feet, seeking her foe.

A powerful kick sent her sprawling, and she barely rolled out of the way as the chair shattered where her head had just been.

She stood, and immediately staggered backwards as another kick struck beneath her chin. A third kick followed, but this time she was ready, catching the other's leg in one hand, her talons digging into the calf.

Somehow, the other managed to pull out of the hunter's grip. They circled warily, the other seemingly oblivious to the blood trickling down her leg.

As if by mutual agreement, they closed. The hunter felt her talons rake across flesh, but the other gained a strong grip upon her shoulder and arm, and hurled the hunter across the room.

The windows creaked at the impact, but remained in place. This time, the hunter did not rise as quickly, and one arm hung awkwardly at her side.

Again, they circled. Again, they closed. The hunter reached toward the other's face, but her wrist was caught and held.

A metal fist drove into the hunter's stomach, and she felt a blade pierce her. Desperately, the hunter pulled away, heedless of the blade ripping through her guts.

The thin blade slid silently back into the arm that had concealed it, and the two circled once more. This time, when the other advanced, the hunter retreated, but she was no longer fast enough. Perhaps she never had been.

The metal hand closed around the hunter's throat. She shrieked and howled as electrical current coursed through her body. When the blade pierced her neck, she did not even feel it.

She felt herself being lifted off the ground, and hurled again against the windows. This time, they were unable to hold; the hunter fell into the night amid a shower of glass.

Weakly, she tried to claw at the side of the building, to slow her fall, but the metal and glass offered her no purchace.

If anybody observed her fall, they chose to do nothing. She lay on the ground, ignored by those she had so recently terrorised.

All was still for some time. Then, slowly, the limp, broken thing that had been the hunter dragged herself away from the building.

She wanted to crawl back to the technicians, to those that called themselves her keepers. They would repair her. They would care for her, make her stronger and deadlier than she was before.

She was alone. If she had known how, perhaps she would have wept, but all she could do was crawl away.

At last, she was too weak even to crawl, and so she lay in a forgotten alley and waited to die.

Again, she felt that she was being watched. If they wished to watch her die, so be it. She no longer had the strength to care.

Far above her, she heard the soft whine of a stealthed helicopter. Footsteps approached her, and she felt herself being turned over. Through her fading vision, she saw a familiar face, one she once would have recognized and perhaps even obeyed, but she could not remember his name. Names had never mattered to her before, but his had been important.

He spoke to her, in a the first familiar voice she had heard in what seemed a very long time.

"It's time to come home, Desdemona."

Shadowfist fiction: TFT finale

jlighton — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:16:40 GMT

And now, the first major piece of Shadowfist fiction I wrote: the finale to Two-Fisted Tales.

Fortunately, by the time I wrote it, we knew who had won. If I'd had to write it keeping all the factions viable, it would've sucked. (There's still at least four available.) I honestly don't know how I would've worked some of them in. The faction who were leading going into Gencon were doable, but I'm just as glad I didn't have to. The Jammers would've been really bloody hard.

This was easier for me to write than the other pulp stories would've been. The rest of them were in sub-generes I didn't have a good feel for (For the John Fenris/Golden Gunman story I was supposed to write, I had to download and read a bunch of Doc Savage novels), while this one was something I'd been reading for a couple of decades.

We were waiting for the rest of the story to be finished before releasing the lot, so it never actually got posted.

It is with great reluctance that I write this report, but the things I saw and experienced on that ill-fated expedition still haunt me, and I share them in the hope that some person may make sense of the knowledge contained herein, and take whatever actions should be necessary.

Perhaps I also seek expiation for the deaths of so many good men. No court would hold me responsible, yet still I blame myself.

Some years before, Mister John Fenris had retained my services in planning and heading an Antarctic expedition, to set up some massive radio towers on the continent. He explained his purpose as an experiment in radio-assisted navigation, though I must assume that little came of it.

When he contacted me again to arrange another expedition, this one to Ross Island, I was only too happy to oblige. Our prior dealings and his sterling reputation reassured me when his requirements seemed irrational.

Perhaps those who read this will consider me a fool to place such trust in a man's reputation, given the hazards involved. But you are no doubt as familiar with his deeds as I was at the time, and I am certain most of you would have done the same. Since my return, I have made extensive inquiries into his past, and have found myself with many more questions than I started with, and no more answers. Most strange is the complete lack of any information as to his activities before he walked out of the Egyptian desert some twenty years past.

His requirements seemed irrational indeed. I was to lay in supplies, hire two ships and their crews, as well as men and equipment as would be required for several weeks in the Antarctic. All were to remain in Boston, likely for many months, at vast expense. We were to be prepared to depart on two days' notice.

Most worryingly, I was instructed to procure armaments.

I made arrangements promptly. The Nautilus and the Seagull were duly contracted, along with their crews, and equipment and such provisions as would not spoil were laid in, though I did not expect to depart for a good eight months, for Mister Fenris was currently in Egypt, or perhaps Africa, and winter would soon be setting in in the Southern Hemisphere, and I thought him too wise to attempt the journey before summer.

When I received a telegram perhaps three months later, instructing me to make everything ready, I should have refused. It was madness, but I am a man of my word.

I met Mister Fenris and his associates at the harbor two days later. They were a most curious lot, most of whom I would have judged unsuitable for an expedition into the Antarctic wastes, but it was becoming apparent that common sense would be in short supply.

They were:

A Chinaman by the name of Zheng Yi Quan. Strangely, many of the others deferred to him, and even Mister Fenris treated him as an equal.

Doctor Amanda Snow, a renowned archaeologist despite her sex.

Mister David Maxwell I knew by reputation. I assumed he was funding the expedition in part or in whole, but that left its purpose no less obscure.

Doctor John Haynes, who claimed to be a historian, though his bearing and manner seemed decidedly out of place with his claimed profession.

A young lady who gave her name only as 'Athena'. Throughout the journey, she seemed mostly to avoid the others, save for Mister Fenris. One might speculate as to her purpose, but such speculations do not befit a gentleman.

Captain Jake Molloy, a pilot. His aeroplane was being loaded onto the Seagull even as we spoke. He was the only one whose presence I welcomed, for I had been unable to engage the services of any pilots on my own.

Another Chinese, this one a woman, whose name was Tricia Kwok.

A private investigator by the name of Thomas Donovan. Of all of them, he seemed the least comfortable with the idea of the expedition.

An Englishman who claimed the unlikely name of 'Silver Jet'.

There was another, a slim man of one of the Western Asiatic races. He said little, and we were not introduced.

They were all somber, even grim. Most of them appeared to be carrying firearms.

I made one last attempt to regain control of the expedition when I demanded that the women be left behind. The rigors of the Antarctic are too much for the weaker sex, and I did not feel that I could ensure their safety from the crew. My demands fell on deaf ears. I considered resigning then and there, but without my experience, I feared a repeat of the infamous Starkweather-Moore Expedition, in which all hands were lost.

The voyage passed without serious incident until we had rounded the Cape of Magellan. There were the expected injuries and illnesses, but nothing serious. My concerns for the safety of the women proved unfounded, as they all proved quite able to fend off unwelcome advances, though the generally violent nature of their refusals left me with even greater doubts as to the purpose of the expedition.

As the weather grew colder, a sense of nervousness grew among the men, and for good reason. Most of them had spent time in these waters, and knew them to be hazardous even in high summer, while we would be reaching the continent in the dead of winter. I believe they would have refused to continue had it not been for the presence of Mister Fenris, giving the entire thing something of the air of the fantastical adventures to be found in those dreadful dime novels.

As Antarctica grew closer, conditions became worse. The days rapidly grew shorter. We were beset by storms, and frequently had to change course to avoid floating ice. Tempers were fraying among both the men and Mister Fenris' companions.

On June 16th, we were enveloped in by far the worst storm to date. Visibility dropped to nearly zero, and brutal gusts of icy wind made it impossible for any man to remain on deck for more than a few minutes. It was feared that the two ships would collide, and it became necessary for Mister Fenris to devise and hastily assemble a most powerful lamp, far brighter than any I have seen before or since. With this lamp mounted upon the stern of the Seagull, it was possible for the Nautilus to follow at a safe distance, without the ships losing track of each other in the dark and storm.

When the storm abated somewhat the next day, he crossed to the Nautilus by means of the ship's boat, in order to construct another such lamp for them. However, the storm redoubled in ferocity soon afterward, and he was unable to return.

Early in the morning of the 18th, I was awakened from a fitful sleep by shouting and gunfire. Seizing my own weapon, I rushed toward the source of the disturbance, which proved to be the bridge. On my way there, I found myself stepping over the bodies of several men I knew, including Jack Paris, the captain of the Seagull.

Near to the door to the bridge, there lay the corpses of five men, all dead of gunshot wounds. Each was dressed in robes and featureless metal masks.

Inside the bridge was a scene of total chaos. There were a dozen more of the masked men, all armed with knives. Opposed to them were only two - Mister Donovan, and Miss Athena. She was unarmed, and dressed in a nightgown I can only describe as indecent. He was clothed and armed, but even as I entered, he loosed his last bullet. Perhaps due to his unsteady footing in the rough seas, it struck nothing. He dropped his pistol and his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and attempted to move between the woman and their assailants.

In the pause that followed his shot, it occurred to me that I had a weapon of my own. Much to my shame, even as I raised it, the ship lurched violently, and I lost both my footing and my firearm.

From my position on the floor, I saw only portions of the battle that followed. It was as brief and one-sided as I had feared, but the outcome was not what I had expected.

He charged into the crowd of men; she stepped lightly behind. He fought like a boxer, delivering punishing blows to their heads and torsos, while ducking and weaving as best he could, shrugging off the blows and cuts he could not avoid. She fought like nothing I have seen before, always calmly stepping aside, as if she knew where a man would strike even before he himself did. I only saw her strike back twice. Once, she caught hold a man's wrist, and twisted it until he first dropped his knife, then the bones in his arm snapped, and finally she bent his entire arm up behind his back, dislocating it at the shoulder. The other time, she simply grabbed a man's head in both her hands, and twisted it until his neck snapped.

Afterward, Donovan offered her his coat to cover herself, but she declined. He shrugged, and collapsed in the nearest chair. He was bruised and bloody, but seemed to have no immediately life-threatening injuries. She was uninjured. He pulled a flask from his hip pocket and took a long swig. When he offered that to Athena, she accepted graciously.

As others who had been further away from events arrived, we took stock of our situation. The diagnosis was grim. The ship's radios and much of its navigational equipment had been destroyed. The dead included not only Captain Paris, but also his first mate and the ship's navigator - indeed, every man qualified to pilot the ship was dead.

The assailants proved, upon their unmasking, to be members of the ship's crew. Those who still lived refused to explain themselves. Indeed, not one of them said another word for the rest of the hellish journey. As we dealt with them, I had the presence of mind to observe our passengers. It seemed to me that they found the mutineers' costumes not in the least bit surprising or unusual, as if they had expected opposition from men so garbed.

Once we had made some pretense at restoring order and at securing the vessel, Donovan told his tale. While he spoke, the woman, seemingly unconcerned by her near nakedness, attended to his injuries with the precision of a skilled doctor. Afterward, she claimed that she had nothing to add to his tale.

Donovan told us that he had been unable to sleep, and had left his cabin to stretch his legs. His wanderings took him to the bridge, where he interrupted the mutineers in their acts of sabotage. Other than those mutineers diverted from their mission of murder, Athena and myself were the only ones who were near enough to hear who had not yet been murdered, presumably due to our inability to pilot or navigate the ship.

After he finished his story, a long silence followed, in which I considered the gravity of our plight. Finally, our ruminations were interrupted when Mister Molloy asked, "What of the Nautilus?"

Several of us immediately removed ourselves to the stern, where we held the vain hope of learning something of the fate of our sister vessel by observation. Had there been a similar uprising? Were all aboard dead? Had they a navigator?

We huddled around the great lamp, and stared out into the darkness. After several minutes, Mister Fenris' unnamed Asiatic companion spoke, stating that he had seen the ship. At his direction several of us thought they saw her outline in the darkness. I myself could still see nothing.

After some more minutes, he withdrew a handgun from beneath his coat. It was most curious in appearance. It was of no model familiar to me, and since my return, I have consulted many gunsmiths, and none has been able to show me a weapon of similar design. They also assure me that a weapon composed of solid gold, as this one appeared to be, would be utterly impractical, unable to withstand the stresses involved in firing even a single bullet.

He raised this weapon into the air and fired it twice. I did not see how it could be heard through the storm, but it would seem that it was, for a great lamp, twin to our own, blazed to life on the bow of the Nautilus. The man with the golden gun smiled slightly, and said "That will be Fenris."

After a few moments, the lamp began to blink on and off, signaling in the manner of the Morse code. We were instructed to lower a line into the sea. Trusting in our mysterious leader, we did as instructed, then blinked our own lamp once to acknowledge.

A shadow passed in front of the lamp, as a man dived from the bow of the Nautilus into the churning, frigid waters. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, our line went taut, and we scrambled to assist John Fenris over the rail.

No other man could have survived that crossing, but even a man such as he has limits, and we hastened to get him inside, warm, and dry. As we did, he told us of the Nautilus' predicament.

There had been a similar betrayal, though by fewer men, only a half-dozen. Perhaps because of their fewer numbers, they completed their sabotage first, then embarked on their campaign of murder. One of them had attempted to assassinate John Fenris, and so their plans had been discovered and foiled, though there were several dead. The Nautilus could be piloted, but they had no means of navigation.

After we apprised Mister Fenris of our own situation, he proceeded to the bridge, where he perused those charts that still remained. After several minutes of contemplation, he sprang into action, taking the helm from the overwhelmed seaman who had been instructed to keep our course as steady as possible.

The Nautilus was instructed, by means of signaling with the great lamp, to follow closely in our wake. For the next five days, John Fenris stood at the helm of the Seagull. He did not sleep, and took only the briefest of breaks in order to refresh himself. The windows of the bridge were broken out, so that he might hear the changes in the wind made by the presence of nearby ice, and so that he might see what little there was to be seen, without it being obscured by ice upon the glass. He was like a statue at the helm, barely moving as he kept us to a course charted out only within his own mind.

On the fifth day, the Nautilus was signaled to cut its engines and drop anchor. After a pause to allow some distance between the two vessels, we did the same. At long last, the Iron Man slept. We were instructed to awaken him when the storm finally faded, which he estimated would be in another six hours.

When it did, we were cheered by our first sight of sunlight in many days. Of course, in winter, the Sun never rises above the horizon in those climes, but we were still far enough north that there is a dim glow, such as one gets at dawn or dusk.

Though it does not last particularly long, it allowed us to safely move the ships closer to the shores of Ross Island. We were located at the eastern tip of the island. To the east and south stretched the bleak expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf. To the west, the peak of Mount Terror loomed above us, concealing that of Mount Erebus beyond.

We made haste to unload equipment and to begin to set up an encampment. The great lamps devised by John Fenris made it possible to continue our labors even after the natural light had departed. Without them, our task would have been impossible. With them, it was merely difficult and dangerous. Three men fell into the water, and one broke his leg when he lost his balance on the ice.

When we attempted to ferry the sled dogs from their kennels on the Nautilus to their shelters upon the land, we encountered an unforeseen difficulty. Normally, the animals are only too willing to leave their cramped quarters after a lengthy voyage, and the problem is that of controlling them. This time, they huddled in the back, and refused to be moved. They were not aggressive or ill-tempered - they seemed more afraid than anything else.

At last, Mister Fenris was forced to return to the ship to address the problem. In his presence, the animals were docile and obedient. Their attitude toward him resembled nothing more than that of a challenger that has just been roundly beaten in its attempt to overcome the alpha dog. For the rest of the expedition, the animals would be skittish and difficult, save for when John Fenris was nearby.

With this last obstacle cleared away, we could at last rest from our labors. The next day, we would make Captain Molloy's aeroplane ready, and he would take advantage of the day's brief light to scout out the lay of the land.

After the day's exertions, we should have slept soundly, but I did not, nor did any man I thought to ask. When I did sleep, I was troubled by my dreams. They were not nightmares - I have by now become something of an expert on the subject of nightmares. They were merely ordinary dreams, but there seemed to be a pervasive feeling of dread overlaid upon them.

The next day, Captain Molloy performed his pre-flight tests and awaited the day's brief light. He was to observe the terrain around Mount Erebus as best he could in the time available and then return. We had no radios with which to communicate with him as he explored, but he seemed unconcerned, and confident in his ability to return safely.

As we waited, I noticed a certain amount of commotion in the camp. The men seemed to be slowly gathering at its eastern edge. Curious, I set off to investigate. Part-way there, I was intercepted by a messenger, sent to fetch me and those others who were assisting with the launch of the aeroplane. At long last, John Fenris would be explaining the reasons for this ill-conceived expedition.

As the last stragglers reached the assembly, we heard the whine of the aeroplane's motor, as Captain Molloy took off to begin his investigation. He rapidly vanished from sight, and the noise soon trailed away as well.

John Fenris stood facing us all, barely moving, his back to the sea. With the pale light behind him, he looked more a metal statue than a living man. At long last, he spoke. He never raised his voice, but spoke quietly and firmly. His words carried easily in the still, cold air.

His tale was fantastic, worthy of the most absurd of the pulp magazines. Still, perhaps due to the setting and to the strangeness we had already experienced, I do not believe a single one of the men doubted him for a second. Even I, suspicious as I was by then, found it difficult to do so.

We were told of a sinister organization known as the Cult of the Unnameable, worshippers of a strange god of madness. He had been investigating the cult's activities for some time, and had learned of their terrible plans. In only two days time, they were to perform a mystical ritual at Mount Erebus. He and his companions were determined to stop this ritual. We had not been informed of our purpose earlier because he had feared that we had been infiltrated - and indeed, the men who had betrayed us during our voyage had worn the robes and masks of these cultists, and he did not wish for the Cult to know how much he knew.

He warned us that our task would be dangerous, far more so than what we had already faced, and that he would think no less of any man who wished to remain behind with the ships.

Nearly every man there volunteered their aid without a second thought. Even the man whose leg was broken wished to help in any way he could.

As we prepared the dog sleds for the final portion of our journey, we awaited Captain Molloy's return. The light faded, and so we set up lights to guide him in. But it was to no avail. His plane did not return.

We set a watch and went to our beds uneasily. Once again, my dreams were strange and disturbed, and I slept poorly. During one period of half-wakefulness, I thought that I heard shouting from outside. Mindful of the events on the ship, I dressed as rapidly I could manage.

Our improvised airstrip was still lit, and by that light, I saw two figures moving slowly toward the camp, carrying some weighty object between them. Another man was rapidly approaching them from the direction of the camp. In the darkness, it seemed unlikely that they saw him.

However, I was not the only observer of this scene. From one of the nearby huts, I heard several gunshots ring out. The lone figure dropped suddenly to the ground as if hit, and soon I heard gunfire from his direction. The approaching men dropped like stones, and did not move.

By this point, there was considerable activity, at times verging on panic, within the camp. I heard the voice of John Fenris attempting to regain order. I found myself able to do naught but watch, wondering if what I was seeing was nothing more than a dream.

In the confusion, the first gunman might have escaped capture, but for what happened next. The man he had shot pulled himself to his feet, and began to limp toward the other fallen men. He had not gone very far when another shot rang out. I saw a spark as it impacted whatever object the two men had been carrying. A moment later, a second shot must have also struck it, for it exploded in a ball of flames, bowling over the limping man, and seemingly setting the snow and ice alight.

At last, I shook off my trance, and rushed toward him. Behind me, I heard yells and a struggle, as other men apprehended the gunman. As I approached, I realized that the fallen man was also afire, but even as I reached him, he lifted himself upon one arm, and rolled over several times, extinguishing the flames.

In the dying light of the nearby fire, I recognized the face of Doctor John Haynes. I did what little I could to aid him under the circumstances, and was soon joined by several other men. We carried him inside, where he could be treated properly. The other two were beyond any man's help.

His injuries were not as severe as they might have been - his heavy clothing had protected him from the worst of the flames. In addition to his burns, and cuts from flying shrapnel, he had been shot in the leg, and it seemed likely that several of his ribs were cracked. He was unconscious due to shock, but it was the opinion of our doctor that he would recover.

The events of that night were not hard to deduce. Once again, we had been betrayed from within - the gunman, another man found lying unconscious among the huts, and the two who were dead all wore the masks of the cultists. Our improvised armory had been broken into, and four pistols and a quantity of explosives had been stolen. Two tanks of fuel were missing from the airstrip. One tank was discovered among the sleds, prepared for detonation with approximately half of the missing explosives.

We concluded that the cultists had meant to set the other tank amidst the huts of the camp, then detonate both. One of the cultists had attempted to ambush Doctor Haynes as he patrolled the camp, and had been overcome, allowing the alarm to be sounded.

At this point, it was only an hour or two before the time we had planned to set out, and we were all reluctant to return to our beds, so it was decided to begin at once.

The journey was slow, even though it is not even twenty miles from our camp to the base of Mount Erebus. But the terrain is difficult at the best of times, and the cold and darkness only made it more so.

John Fenris set out ahead of the sleds on foot, bearing a light and flares with which to observe the terrain and mark any hazards. His pace would have done credit to many an athlete in far more favorable conditions. The sleds followed in single file, the dogs eagerly following in his footsteps.

The day's light came as we passed Mount Terror, revealing Mount Erebus to us for the first time. To me, it seemed somehow more sinister than it had on my previous journeys.

Above the mountain, an ugly mass of clouds was gathering, another storm in the making. Flickers of strange light reached from the peak to the clouds above. They did not have the look of lightning. They continued throughout our journey, increasing in both intensity and frequency as time went on.

The ground had begun to rise steadily, and a light snow was falling when we saw John Fenris' light being waved steadily, signaling for us to halt. Once we halted and approached his position, we saw why.

He had found Captain Molloy's aeroplane. It had carved a long furrow across the landscape, shedding pieces of itself over a distance of perhaps a quarter-mile. What had caused the crash was impossible to determine.

Of the pilot, there was no sign. We paused briefly to search the area, as well as to let the dogs rest, but we found nothing at all.

Reluctantly, we resumed our journey. None of us wanted to leave him there, but he was undoubtedly dead, and we had little time.

We covered several more miles before the steadily rising terrain became too steep for the sleds. Here we made camp, taking a few hours to sleep and eat before continuing on foot. We would leave two men to care for the dogs and await our return.

Our meal was consumed in silence, and it seemed to me that none of us truly wished to sleep, necessary though it might be. I know I did not.

I do not remember my dreams from that night, but I woke unrefreshed, with a growing sense of dread hanging over me. Time had begun to lose its meaning in the incessant darkness, but I made it to be early in the morning of June the 26th.

Whatever the date, that last sleep was better than I have had since. The things I saw that day still haunt my nightmares. Some nights, the faces of the dead, of the men who trusted me, surround me, saying nothing, simply watching me accusingly. And those are the better nights....

After we awoke, we ate the last meal of condemned men, and we began our climb. There were twenty of us - John Fenris and his eight remaining companions, myself, and ten of the men I had recruited in better days, for an expedition that bore no relation to what we ultimately endured.

Erebus is far from the most difficult of mountains, but it is still more than two miles in height, and I feared that we would find ourselves ascending by means of ropes and pitons before too long.

Here, we were aided by the remarkable abilities of John Fenris and several of his companions. They ranged around us widely, searching the terrain for the easiest route of ascent, often climbing up surfaces that seemed impossible.

After several hours of this, Doctor Snow called us to her location. She had uncovered a path that ascended the mountain. It was cleverly concealed - until you were actually upon it, it was nearly invisible. Its method of construction baffled me - had I been asked, I would have judged it a natural formation by its appearance, yet it could hardly be so.

Our feet upon this path, we proceeded at a much quicker pace, even as the mountain's sides grew steeper. The day's light came and went unnoticed, concealed by the gathering clouds.

At long last, the path terminated at a wide ledge, and a tunnel leading into the mountain's heart. Warm, sulfurous air flowed out of the opening, leaving the ledge clear of ice. It was difficult to tell how far we had ascended, but the sickly flickers of light emanating from the peak still seemed far above us.

Mister Fenris announced that he wished to leave four of us behind, to secure our route of escape and to reduce the risk of being assaulted from the rear.

I was entrusted with this task, and I will readily admit I was happy of it - I found myself with a great reluctance to enter that tunnel.

I selected the three others who were to remain with me: Sven Harstrom, an engineer, Samuel Ramsay, a geologist, and Thomas Arliss, a mechanic and one of our animal handlers.

I knew all three from previous expeditions, and knew them to be good men in a difficult situation. I considered them friends, and perhaps I had hoped to save them from the doom I was certain was waiting within the mountain.

We concealed ourself as best we could, and waited, hoping nothing would happen. The mountain's stone was warm enough that we were not overly concerned with the cold, but Samuel reassured me that, while Mount Erebus was an active volcano, it appeared to be relatively quiescent at the moment, and we had little to fear, at least on that front.

Some time passed - I cannot say how long, as my watch had failed at some point during that day's ascent. Nothing moved save the wind and the ominous clouds above us.

Inevitably, I felt the need to relieve myself. Given the conditions, it made the most sense for me to do so within the tunnel, out of the wind. Perhaps twenty feet within, there was a small alcove on the left that was suitable.

As I was finishing, I heard gunfire outside. I could see what was out there only by the flashes of light from above. Framed in the tunnel mouth was what can only be described as a mass of tendrils. They were as thick as a man's arm where they emerged from the writhing knot that passed for the thing's body, and they seemed to divide again and again until they were too small to see. It was bluish grey in color, and would have been difficult to see against the outside sky save for its unnatural, iridescent sheen.

My own gun fell from nerveless fingers, and I ran. I did not want to go deeper into the mountain, but there was nowhere else for me to go. As I fled, I heard my friends screaming. Mercifully, they did not scream for long.

The tunnel twisted and turned, but it led always upward. As it climbed, it grew steadily warmer. There was an occasional side passage or chamber, but all were dead ends. I had a light, so I was not stumbling in the dark, but I feared the attention it might draw to me.

I ran until I came to what appeared to be a true fork in the tunnel. I had no choice but to rest - my legs would barely carry me another step. It was difficult to draw breath in the sulfurous air.

I turned off my light while I rested. I could hear nothing from behind me, but that meant little - we had not heard the thing approach us. From the tunnel to my left, I heard the sound of many footsteps, and furtive flashes of light. I was still too exhausted to run.

To my great relief, those approaching proved to be the rest of our expedition. They looked tired and bedraggled. Those that were still there did not seem to be badly hurt, but there were only fifteen left. I cannot recall seeing Mister Maxwell among John Fenris' companions, nor Gunnar Halverson from my own, but I must have overlooked one of them.

When I described the thing I had seen, it was clear from their expressions that they had also encountered such horrors.

I went with them when they continued. A man in a long black coat, hat and mask set out several minutes before the rest of us, silently scouting the way. He must have been one of Fenris' companions, but I am not sure which one.

Due to the new threat of an attack from behind, John Fenris brought up the rear. With him walked Athena, and they occasionally conversed in low tones. I was close enough to overhear, but they spoke in a language I could not recognize. Mister Donovan slowly drifted backwards through the group without seeming to do so purposefully; perhaps he was also curious about what they discussed.

There were no side chambers or other diversions now; the tunnel led ever upward, and the air grew ever warmer and more foul.

The masked man stepped out of the shadows, signaling for us to stop. He worked through the group to Fenris, and brought Zheng Yi Quan with him. Clearly, he had discovered something of import. The three of them soon agreed upon a course of action.

The masked man again taking the lead, we moved forward with considerable haste. We rounded a bend, and the tunnel ahead opened out into a vast cavern, lit from below by an ugly red glow. There was a side passage to the left of the cavern mouth, but we were uninterested in that, and charged straight into the cavern's maw.

The cavern was a geological impossibility. In the central shaft of Mount Erebus, a massive stone platform was suspended by five short stone bridges connecting it to the walls. They could not have borne the weight, but they did. Each bridge led into a corresponding tunnel. Approximately thirty feet above, another, semicircular, stone platform created a sort of balcony affixed to the side of the shaft directly opposite to us. Everything was lit with a red glow from far below. The air was terribly hot, and reeked of sulfur.

On that balcony stood a strange sculpture - a spire composed of five thin columns twisting impossibly around each other, but never actually touching. It pulsed with the same light that I had previously seen above the volcano. I found it difficult to look at, but at the same time, nearly impossible to look away.

When I did, I saw a man standing near the lip of the balcony. He was dressed in a robe and a metallic face mask. He spoke then, and his words had the cold tinge of madness.

"Pathetic fools! You are too late! All the world's chi flows through this place, and soon, thanks to the artifacts you so helpfully retrieved, I shall be able to attune to all the feng shui in this juncture!"

Several of our party had out their weapons, and they were firing on the man above, but to no effect. It seemed almost as if each bullet veered away from him. A pale light began to grow about his hands as he raised them above his head.

"And now, I shall be rid of your interference once and for all!"

The light flared, then disappeared. Above his head, it seemed as if space itself was being distorted, pulled inward toward a single point. He gestured, and it ripped through the air toward us, the world contracting before it, then expanding again in its wake.

It struck the bridge upon which some of us still stood. The stone seemed to shrink, then it exploded violently. I was hurled backward into the tunnel, and everything went dark.

I was unconscious for only a minute or two. When I recovered my senses, it seemed that I had been lucky, for I had no severe injuries. Four others had been thrown backward with me. Zheng Yi Quan and Athena were unconscious still, and he had sustained a nasty gash upon his forehead. Tom Donovan was awake, but clutching his leg in agony. It seemed likely to me that it was broken. John Fenris stood, leaning heavily against the tunnel's wall, I might have thought him uninjured had I not been close enough to hear the ragged gasps of his breath, suggesting that some of his ribs were broken, and they might have punctured a lung.

Inside, our companions were beset by a veritable army of cultists. The masked man overhead was hurling sweeping arcs of light into the fray, striking down friend and foe alike. Even had we been in a condition to provide assistance, we would be unable to, for the bridge had been destroyed.

I crawled over to Donovan, and did what I could to help him splint his leg using the materials at hand. It was not a pretty job, but it would do.

It was at about this point that Miss Kwok stepped out from beneath the balcony, where our companions had sought refuge from the masked man's assaults. She hurled a small dark object at him, but it was swept aside just as the bullets had been. His retaliation hurled her across the platform and nearly over its edge.

Before he could strike again, the object she had thrown proved to be a grenade. He was blasted over the edge of the balcony and crashed to the ground. His mask skittered across the rock and dropped into the depths.

He staggered to his feet. With his mask gone, and the hood of his robe fallen, he was revealed to be an elderly man, his hair grey, and his face seemingly in a permanent scowl. I did not know him, but it seemed my companions did.

"Broome," muttered Donovan, "I shoulda known. He played us all for suckers."

The man called Broome began chanting, in a language I did not recognize, that seemed to me to be no human language. A column of darkness appeared before him, rapidly growing wider. He backed away from it, toward the edge of the platform. As his chant reached a crescendo, there was a sharp crack.

Doctor Snow had moved closer to him while he was distracted, and had lashed her bullwhip about his legs. She pulled upon the whip, and he toppled over the edge, still chanting as he fell.

The column of darkness collapsed in upon itself. At its center stood a thing, three times the height of a man. In form, it vaguely resembled a man. Instead of arms it had long tentacles, each tipped with a sharp spine. Its head was elongated, and separated at the front into more tentacles, similar but shorter. The head was otherwise featureless, save for the eyes.

Dear God, the eyes. Of all the things that awaken me in the night, screaming in horror, those eyes are the most terrible. They were unlike the eyes of any natural thing I have ever seen, smooth and featureless, of a color I am wholly unable to name. They seemed fixed straight upon me, and all I saw in them was utter hatred. I wanted to scream, to run, to leap into the volcano to get away, but I could do nothing but meet their gaze.

John Fenris stepped in front of me, occluding those terrible eyes. He bore Athena in his arms. She was stirring, but still unconscious. He said to us, "We need to find some other way around. Help Zheng."

Zheng Yi Quan was awake, but seemed dazed, probably severely concussed. With my assistance, he could walk. Donovan could manage on his own, leaning against the walls to take the weight off his leg.

What good we could do against that horror, I did not know, but I went anyway. The side tunnel circled around the shaft. It must have been rising steadily, but I did not notice this at the time.

It opened out onto the balcony. Donovan collapsed to the ground in agony, and I let Zheng slump to the ground. Before us stood the strange spire. It was no longer pulsing with light, but glowing steadily. At the base, each of the five strands grew from an object, perhaps the artifacts Broome had referred to. The light seemed to flow from each object, up the twisting strands, and into a single column, stretching out into the heavens above.

The strands were widely separated at the bottom, leaving a space in the center big enough for a man to stand. It seemed to be calling to me, whispering in my mind, telling me to enter, to become one with it. It took every ounce of will I had to remain where I was.

John Fenris was standing next to me, equally transfixed, Athena still in his arms.

Our reverie was broken by an explosion from below. It occurred to me that all this time, we had heard gunfire and yelling from our companions below, but it had not seemed important until then.

We looked over the edge. They were not faring well against that horror. Several had fallen, whether dead or merely injured, I cannot say. Gunfire seemed not to hurt it in the slightest, and even the grenade that had just exploded did little but stagger it.

John Fenris gazed down at the scene below, then at the spire, then back. It seemed to me I saw tears in his eyes. He kissed Athena upon the forehead, and whispered to her, "Tell him I'm sorry... I just can't do it."

He then set her gently down upon the floor, and hurled himself over the edge of the balcony. She managed to pull herself to the edge in time to see.

He had leapt directly at the horror, clutching its torso with his great arms. The force of his leap had pushed it backwards, right to the edge of the platform. There, they struggled for a moment, it trying to free itself, he trying to force it further backwards.

The moment ended, and they toppled over the edge, into the fire far below.

Everything was still for a moment, the silence broken only by Athena's cries of loss. Then, the light from behind me seemed to change, and we turned and beheld Zheng Yi Quan standing in the middle of the spire. The light had changed subtly in character, become somehow more pleasant to look at. It was also no longer flowing up into the sky, but down, out of the sky, and into the man. He cried out in his own tongue, then fell to his knees.

It was over. The light faded away. The spire seemed to shatter into an infinite number of fragments and disappear.

The mountain shook violently. The light from below grew brighter and more irregular. From below, someone shouted "Run!"

Athena was on her feet, unsteady but mobile. Zheng seemed dazed, but not in the same way as he had before. The signs of a concussion had disappeared, but he seemed somehow overwhelmed.

I tried to help Donovan to his feet, but he collapsed as soon as he put weight on his leg. It seemed we would have no choice but to leave him. Of the three of us, only Zheng might have been strong enough to carry him, and he did not seem to understand anything I said.

Athena stood over Donovan for a moment, looking thoughtful. Then she bent down and picked him up, seemingly as easily as a grown man lifts an infant.

I took Zheng's hand to guide him, and we ran. The mountain's quaking grew more and more violent, but somehow we all kept our footing, reaching the ledge outside without incident. Once outside, we did not even attempt the path, but simply scrambled down the mountain, often more falling than climbing. I do not understand how we made it down without further injury. I kept looking back, but I saw no one behind us.

By the time we reached our camp, the mountain was spitting burning rock into the air. To my great relief, the men and dogs we had left behind were still there and still alive. They would have already fled, but they had seen our descent. We scrambled on to two of the sleds, and were off. The dogs from the other sleds had been loosed from their harnesses, and they followed all around us, eager to be away from the mountain.

As we rode, I watched behind us, hoping to see some sign, but all I saw was the top of the volcano exploding in sudden fury, and molten rock pouring down its sides.

When we finally returned to our base camp, we found only further horror. The camp had been utterly destroyed. The huts were smashed flat, as if by a great wind. Of the people, the only sign of them we could find were a great many spatters of blood, now frozen into crystals of red ice.

The ships remained in the harbor, but they were silent, with no sign of life aboard. We left one man to tend the dogs, and left Zheng and Donovan with him as well. The rest of us climbed into a boat, and made our way to the Nautilus.

As we climbed aboard in the darkness, we were ambushed by a number of men. I cried out as they set upon us, and almost instantly they backed away. A small lamp was lit, and it revealed the face of Doctor Haynes.

Not long after our departure from the camp, he had regained consciousness. Concerned about the defensibility of the camp, and about the possible need for a rapid departure, he had prevailed upon the men to begin returning to the ships.

And it was well that he had. Not long after the day's light faded, a swarm of things had swept into camp from the west, destroying everything, and slaughtering every man still on land, which was nearly half of them. None on the ship had been able to see the attackers. Since then, they had been hiding on the Nautilus, preparing to depart once we returned, or once it seemed evident that we would not.

Those we had left ashore were retrieved without incident, and we sailed at first light. We had barely enough men to crew one ship, so the Seagull was left behind. We still had no means of navigation and no radio, but we sailed north until we encountered another vessel, and they guided us into harbor in New Zealand.

During that last voyage, I spent much of my time with my journals, preparing the first draft of the account you are reading now. The others who returned from Mount Erebus seemed to me to have been deeply changed by it. I have made attempts to keep track of their movements in the time since, in the vain hope of learning more about what was truly going on.

During our entire return voyage, Zheng Yi Quan spoke to no one. He spent his days seated at the bow of the ship, apparently lost in thought. From New Zealand, he took passage to his native China, where I have few contacts, and so lost track of him.

Tom Donovan was almost as uncommunicative during the voyage. He spoke on occasion with Athena, but little with anybody else. Upon our arrival in New Zealand, he received treatment on his leg, but the delay in having it set means that he will forever walk with a limp. After being confined to a bed for a week, he departed the next day. I do not know where he went, but it is only recently, more than a year later, that he has returned to New York. My attempt to make contact with him upon his return resulted in his threatening my representative with greivous bodily harm.

Unlike the others, Athena seemed more sociable on the return trip than she had been before. She would actively seek out the company of others, and engage them in conversation, though she had little to say about the events of our trip, and there was always a feeling that she was studying you, rather than simply talking. She remained in New Zealand for a week, and took passage on a ship to Brazil, but I can find no evidence that she ever disembarked from that ship.

Shadowfist fiction: TFT Dragon Frame

jlighton — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 05:11:47 GMT

Blame ladymondegreen for this one. The first half-dozen or so paragraphs existed. I knew more-or-less what happened after, I'd just been a bit unhappy with my start, and been unsure how to revise them. (I ended up not making any notable changes.)

Then she went and encouraged me. Not only have I finished this one, but I also started writing more of the Critical Shift story in my head before I was done with this.

Anyway, this one's weightier than the Ascended frame, because the Ascended were unaware of what was really going on, whereas the Dragons, since they're the heroes, are in the thick of it.

The sheer number of characters gets awkward at times. It might've been easier if the five McGuffin-hunt stories existed, since I could farm off character work to them. As it is, a lot of them get no real foreground time. I'm not happy with that, but the hoops I'd've had to jump through to even introduce them properly proved awkward as hell.

It also makes inserting the card images trickier than normal. (Especially since things render differently in every single browser I've tried.)

Pale sunlight filtered through the windows of a shabby pub in the backwaters of London. Even in the evening, the room would be sparsely populated. At midday, it was usually all but deserted.

This day, two men sat at a table in the rear, their backs to the wall. Neither of them belonged in this place.

One was Chinese, tall and well-muscled. His hair was long and loose, barely streaked with grey. His eyes were those of a wild animal, watching everything with suspicion.

His friend, who at least more closely resembled a native of this country, was perhaps even more out of his place. Everything about him - his clothes, his words, his bearing - marked him as a man who would never deign to enter a place such as this. To the casual observer, he was by far the more relaxed of the two.

They seemed to be waiting for someone.

They seemed also to be waiting for trouble, and for good reason. They were fighting a war against powerful and shadowy enemies, foes who could crush them easily should they choose to spend the effort.

By some measures, they had recently enjoyed immense success in their war. However, deep in their hearts they knew they were more like an insect, too small to do more than annoy. They fought because it was the right thing to do, because evil must be opposed.

Eventually, the pub's door openened, and someone entered. It was neither the friends they awaited, nor the trouble they expected.

A boy of perhaps ten stood in the doorway, peering about the dark room. After a moment, he approached their table, and placed a plain white envelope upon it.

Watching the two curiously, and a bit nervously, the boy began to back away. Before he could get very far, Silver Jet reached out and gently restrained him. The boy seemed to think briefly about trying to run before Silver Jet produced a coin.

"Who sent you?", he asked quietly.

The boy took the coin before answering, "Dunno. Old bloke, never seen him before."

Another coin was produced and taken, "What did he ask you to do?"

"Just to come in here, and give that," the boy pointed at the envelope, "to any Chinese in here."

"Thank you." Silver Jet fished in his pocket and produced a pound note. As he pulled it out, the boy's eyes fixed on the ring on his left hand, which appeared to be made of ice. Despite his fascination, the boy did not hesitate in snatching the note and hurrying out of the pub.

Silver Jet picked up the envelope and briefly held it up to the light. "It seems that somebody knows we're here," he said as he passed it to Zheng Yi Quan. "Still, it's not the sort of greeting I'd have expected."

Yi Quan tore off the side of the envelope and extracted the card within. He read it quickly and frowned.

That evening, an early snow fell as a pair of cabs pulled up before a home in a much better part of the city. There was nothing exceptional about it; it clearly belonged to somebody wealthy but not ostentatious. The cabs' passengers reflexively looked for concealed security, and did not relax visibly when they saw none.

A beautiful Chinese woman and a slim Asian man in dark glasses stepped out of the cabs, their hands hovering near barely-concealed pistols, ready to meet the ambush that did not emerge from the nearby shadows.

Moments later, they were joined by Zheng Yi Quan, Silver Jet, and a sharp-faced American.

A butler answered the bell, and led the five of them into a spacious library, warmed by a roaring fireplace.

An elderly man contemplated them from a comfortable chair opposite the door. He was thin, almost gaunt. He had the face of a man who smiles rarely. He gestured to the chairs and couch near the door.

"I'm glad to see you accepted my invitation. I am Sir Arthur Broome. Please, sit." Silver Jet seated himself. "Mister Zheng, Miss Kwok, Doctor Haynes, please, sit. We have much to discuss."

He smiled thinly, looking at the man in dark glasses. "And you as well. Perhaps you should have chosen your nom de guerre such that it is not so awkward in polite conversation, but the invitation extends to you as well."

The Golden Gunman chuckled softly, and pushed a chair toward a corner, where he could sit without his back to the door.

The butler entered the room, bearing a tea service, which he set on the small table before them. Nobody reached toward it.

"Feel free to take some tea. I assure you, it's perfectly safe."

The old man's guests did not appear particularly reassured, save for the Golden Gunman, who got up from his chair and poured himself a cup.

The old man sighed. "Very well. Straight to business then." He steepled his hands and rested his chin upon them. "I see no need to explain to you who I represent."

If any of the five noticed the ring on his finger bearing the image of a six-spoked wheel, they chose not to comment.

"We have been in opposition before, and will no doubt be again, but at this moment, we want your help."

"The current situation caught us off-guard, and we are spread far too thinly for our liking. We cannot do everything we need to do."

"I assume you are aware of the Purists." He paused, watching their faces, "Yes, I see that you are. In this juncture, they have a sizable operation under the name of the Cult of the Unnameable. I have sources of information in their inner circles, and they are seeking five ancient artifacts, artifacts that are generally purported to have significant magical power."

"They believe they know where they are, and thus so do I. We would send operatives to retrieve them, but we simply haven't the manpower to spare."

"Since you know of the Purists, I'm sure you are of the opinion that anything they want, they should not be allowed to have. If my sources are to be believed, the consequences of allowing them to obtain these items would be significant."

"So, I have a proposal for you: we will provide you with the information we have on the artifacts, and provide you with transportation and such assistance as we can spare, so that you can retrieve the artifacts and bring them to me."

Dr. Haynes interrupted. "If they're so dangerous, why should we let you have them?"

Broome leaned back in his chair. "Who would you rather see in the posession of such an item than an organization vehemently opposed to the very existence of magic? If you kept them, you would need to guard them against those who wish to own them."

He leaned forward again, "I assure you, we have considerable knowledge of how to safely destroy such items."

Doctor Haynes settled back on the couch, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Broome continued, "We can arrange to introduce you to others who can help you. They are not our operatives; as I said, we have no people to spare. They are much closer to kindred spirits of yours, although they are wholely unfamiliar with the Secret War. You may wish to keep it that way, just to keep the explanations simpler, but I leave that to your good judgement."

He straightened up. "So, what do you say? Are you game?"

The room was silent for a moment. The five exchanged uncertain glances.

Broome paused for a time before speaking again, "Of course, you will want to think it over. Quite understandable. Time is pressing, but not so much that we need an answer this instant. My man will show you to the door. You can reach me here once you've made up your minds."

They followed the butler out. The old man watched them leave, his face unreadable.

Once they had returned to the pub, safely ensconced in a back room where nobody was likely to overhear, Silver Jet was the first to speak.

"If it's a trap, it's a bizarrely arcane one."

Doctor Haynes nodded, "Yes. If they wanted us dead, they could have mounted a credible effort when we were separated earlier today, or when we were in the cabs."

"Or tomorrow, or next week..." added the Golden Gunman.

"That doesn't mean we should do it," said Tricia Kwok. "How can we know why they really want us to? We're pawns, and we sure as hell can't trust anything they say."

"Nothing Broome said was a lie," said the Gunman.

A raised eyebrow from Silver Jet. "How can you know that?"

"It's a knack. I've been working on it for years. We've been set up too many times in the past."

Silver Jet looked doubtful.

"I can't explain how it works," continued the Gunman, "Not to you. Maybe to your wife, but not to you."

Silver Jet nodded. "So you trust him?"

The Gunman tipped his chair back, resting his feet on the table. "I didn't say I trusted him. I just said he wasn't lying."

Zheng Yi Quan spoke. "I don't trust him either, but if he's telling the truth, we can't not go."

"It's why we're here."

Assume five lengthy stories here.

The office windows offered a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline, but nobody cared to admire it. The room was large enough to hold the ten of them in comfort, along with a desk that held an unbelievable fortune in ancient artifacts: inticately carved statues in jade and ivory, a skull carved of a single piece of crystal, and a pendant in the shape of an eye, carved of a single ruby. Lying incongruously beside them, as plain as the others were beautiful, was a simple spear of ancient Roman design.

The ten were waiting for someone. Some had been waiting for weeks; others had arrived in the city only days before. All had been instructed to meet him here, and to bring the treasures they had fought so hard for.

There was little tension in the room. Five of the ten had fought at each others' sides for many years. The others knew each other only by reputation or not at all, but there was an easy cameraderie among them all. They chatted among themselves, sharing tales of adventures old and new.

Eventually, Tom Donovan, a lean, dark-haired man in a long coat that had seen better days, aired the thought that was on everybody's mind. "Where is he?" He took a drag on his cigarette. "I watched him get off his ship yesterday, and followed him to his hotel." He paused, ready to defend his actions, but nobody seemed even slightly shocked.

"From everything that's been said, and from everything you lot haven't said," he continued, looking at the five Dragons, "this is too big for him to be jerking us around like this."

"Besides," he shrugged, "I've got bills to pay, and he owes me a bundle by now."

David Maxwell stirred from his chair. "I must agree. Something feels very wrong here."

"Wait." John Fenris's voice cut through all the conversations is the room, silencing them. He sniffed the air. "Some kind of gas."

Jake Molloy pulled at the door, but the handle didn't budge. "Step aside," said Donovan, as he pulled out his pistol. He fired twice at the lock, but the bullets flattened against the door, leaving not a mark.

Without a word to each other, Zheng Yi Quan and John Fenris lowered their shoulders and charged the door. The entire room shook from the force of the impact, but the door remained unbowed.

The Golden Gunman's hand snapped out to steady the Ivory Goddess as the statue rocked on its base, threatening to fall off the desk.

Doctor Snow picked up a chair. As she turned to the window, she stumbled, but still hurled the chair at the glass with all her strength, to no effect. The pane proved as resistant to impact and gunfire as the door.

One by one, they collapsed. John Fenris was the last to succumb, but even his mighty lungs could not hold in his breath forever.

The doors opened easily, and a small army of men dressed in robes and featureless masks entered to carry the heroes and their hard-won treasures away.

Consciousness returned slowly and painfully.

"Good morning!" The voice was cold and mocking.

They lay on the cold floor of a large, dimly-lit basement room. All were tied up. Zheng and Fenris were bound in heavy chains. Lining three of the walls were dozens of men, each in identical robes and featureless masks.

Standing before them was another man. His robes bore fancy embroidery; his mask fit his face better than the others' did. Scattered at his feet were the artifacts they had brought back. He held the Ivory Goddess in one hand.

"You have Mister Fenris here to thank for the fact that you awakened at all. Stand him up." Two of the masked men hurried over to where John Fenris lay, and hauled him to his feet. Their leader stalked over to stand before him.

"We would have slain you all had we not discovered the infiltrator he placed in our ranks. With the knowledge he could have learned, I suspected you might try something like this."

He raised the statue in his hand. "A clever forgery. Indistinguishable to even a trained eye, but it is merely carved ivory."

The masked man snapped his fingers. Another one hurried over, carrying a seemingly identical statue. John Fenris's face remained impassive.

"This statue, which you paid a crewman from your ship to deliver to a safe house in Manhattan?"

"Also worthless. Another fake."

"I must admit, you inspire commendable loyalty. He defended the package to the death."

At that, Fenris snarled. He strained against the chains binding him, but they held firm.

"So, how am I to find the original? Does it lie on the bottom of the ocean? I think not. You are ignorant, but even you would not give up such a treasure as the Ivory Goddess so easily. No, it will be somewhere safe. If needs be, I will torture all of your friends here to the point of death until you tell me where it is."

"I do so hope it becomes necessary, but time is pressing, so...."

He stepped forward, pressing the twin statues against Fenris's hands. A few words spoken in no human language, and he stepped away again. Two of his men hurried up, and he handed them the statues. "Use these to triangulate its position." They bowed, and hurried away through the door behind him.

He paced silently for some time before he next spoke. "But what shall I do with you in the meantime? I must say, there's an argument for starting in on torturing you all, just in case they can't find the statue. Does anyone disagree?"

A few more minutes of pacing, then he again spoke, "We're going to have such fun together..."

Just then, the far door was kicked open. A half-dozen men in long coats charged in, spraying bullets from their tommy guns. Some of the masked men turned to run, others drew knives and turned to fight, but all were cut down.

As soon as the door burst open, John Fenris pulled away from the men holding him and hurled himself at their leader, but the man was too far away. He easily avoided Fenris's charge, but stumbled backward as a bullet tore into his arm, then he dived to the floor and scrambled to the artifacts.

Scooping them up in his arms, he stood again. Now the bullets that should have hit him veered aside, often striking down his own men instead. He spoke five words, and the very air next to him tore asunder, opening a swirling portal that led elsewhere. Its edges warped and twisted the light in a way that hurt the eyes. As he stepped through, it collapsed with a thunderous report.

Soon, no one was standing save the men with tommy guns. A bulky, thick-jowled man in a suit and fedora stalked through the doorway.

Tom Donovan struggled to a sitting position. The armed men did not bother to cover him. "Benilli. What the hell are you doing here?"

Benilli smirked. "Saving your bacon. Not my idea of a good time, but...", he shrugged.

A beautiful brown-haired woman wearing a simple black dress stepped through the doorway behind Benilli. Donovan's jaw dropped open. "You...?"

Athena smiled, and easily pulled him to his feet. "Yes, Thomas, me. I said I'd see you again, didn't I?" She smiled. A thin-bladed knife seemed to materialize in her hand. She cut the ropes binding his arms, then turned to John Fenris.

A moment's work with the knife opened the lock on his chains, and he pulled himself to his feet.

"I'm sorry, John," Athena said, "I got here as quickly as I could, but Vincent took more persuading than I expected."

"Not to rush you or nothin'", said Vincent Benilli, "but we made a lot of noise here, and the cops will be here soon enough."

"Of course," said Athena. "You've done your part. I trust everything was in order with your payment?"

Benilli grinned, "Perfect." He tipped his hat, "A pleasure doin' business with you, ma'am."

As Athena freed the others, Benilli and his boys filed out.

John Fenris raised an eyebrow. "He needed somebody to kill a spider for him," Athena said in a low voice.

"There are three cars waiting outside. Where do we need to be now?"

"Park Avenue," replied Fenris, "and pray we're in time."

As they reached the building, the police cars made it clear they were not. The front door was off its hinges, the doorman lying in a pool of blood, his throat cut.

Inside Fenris's luxurious apartments, almost nothing had been touched, save for a concealed compartment in the floor which had been hurriedly forced open and its contents removed.

"We're down to last resorts," said Fenris, "and it's a long, cold road ahead of us now."