Category: Story Fragments

Used for previews and story fragments

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Aftermath (part three)

Sheep didn’t care as he picked out a spot on the couch and curled up to catch a little shut-eye, but he was still too amped up from this evening’s events to really sleep. Dec disappeared briefly into another room and came back equipped with a compact SMG, slung over one shoulder, snugged between his arm and his ribs. “Feels good to have some teeth,” he said, as he worked the action on the gun and checked the magazine for ammo, before shoving it back into the receiver. Sheep heard the mechanical sounds and looked towards Dec briefly, and chimed in. “If you want to test it, we got a test dummy right here.”, he said, motioning towards Jackson. Res chuckled. “I don’t know how you do it,” Dec said, “after all you’ve been through tonight, and you can still laugh.” Res replied, “I guess I’m not your normal damsel in distress, huh Jackson?”, as she looked towards the hostage. Jackson grunted. There wasn’t much more he could say with duct tape wrapped around his face.

Dec was feeling a little sorry for Jackson at this point, being banged up, gagged, and hooded; he probably wasn’t prepared for this chain of events. He went to the kitchen to get a couple glasses of water, and as he was returning, he heard the outside door open with a rusty groan. His team lead had arrived, a little early. “Dec, you in here?”, the lead called out before entering. Dec shouted, “yep, in the living room”. “I brought a plus one,” the lead said, “picked him up from a local watering hole. He’s drunk but he’s steady.” The lead came in and was followed shortly by Sharp, closing the door behind them. “I don’t know how I got roped into this shit,” Sharp said, “guess I’m just lucky.”. It was Dec’s turn to laugh. He knew Sharp hated cleanup and debrief phases of missions. He was just there for the violence, the personal kind, with short, sharp knives. He earned his nickname.

“Everyone ready to move?”, the lead asked, and surveyed the room. Everyone that could was nodding yes, and Res tapped Sheep on the legs a few times to suggest it was time to stand up. “Here we go,” the lead said, after removing a painting from the wall and pressing a hidden switch. The entire living room shook briefly, then began descending into a hidden elevator shaft under the floor. There were lights embedded in the concrete box walls they were passing on the way down. It looked like a traffic tunnel carved into the side of a mountain, only vertical. A few seconds later, looking up, they saw a floor slide into place way up above, closing off the tunnel, then another one directly overhead, sealing them in. “What is this place?”, Res wondered aloud. The team lead answered her with, “only the finest cold-war waterfront bomb shelter money could buy. We can actually walk under the harbor in this place. They could burn the place upstairs down to the nails and never imagine that anyone is down here. We know; they did it before, during the war.” Sharp chimed in next. “Those commie bastards didn’t even bother breaking the foundation. They just torched anything facing the harbor. Good old 242, she runs silent and deep. We have an entire west wing that goes even deeper, loaded with supplies.” The team lead elbowed Sharp in the ribs and pointed at Jackson, as if to say, shut the hell up, this guy doesn’t need to know all this. Sharp just shrugged; not his fault they pulled him out of the bar to deal with Dec’s mess. He was drunk and didn’t give a shit, but he knew his team lead was the boss here.

“Stavros, you have some medical training. Can you check out Res and our new pal Jackson over there?”, Dec asked the team lead. Stavros nodded yes and went into another room to retrieve a basic medical kit. He returned and started with Res, shining a light in her eyes to check for signs of a concussion. Someone butt stroked her pretty good in the middle of her face. He gently touched the bridge of her nose, feeling the joint where the nose cartilage meets the skull. “Not broken, you’re pretty tough for a lady,” Stavros said quietly as he continued examining her. “Let me help you with this, I’ll be gentle,” he said, as he slowly pulled the bloody tampon out of her nose by the string. He noticed it wasn’t absolutely soaked, suggesting that the bleeding had stopped already. “Any dizziness, nausea, blurry vision?”, he asked. Res replied, “Nope. Minus the nosebleed and my cheek, I feel alright.” “Good, good. Well, if you start feeling any symptoms like that, just speak up. I’ll see what we can do.” Res nodded and reached for a glass of water, not realizing how thirsty she was at first.

Stavros moved over to Jackson and he felt everyone staring at him as he removed the hood and started examining him. “If I remove this tape, you promise to get along with your new friends?”, he asked, “no spitting or screaming?”. Jackson squinted and nodded yes. He really was lucky to be alive, and the last thing he wanted to do now is piss these people off. From what he heard, he assumed Sharp was there to interrogate him, and to dispose of him, if necessary. Glancing past Stavros, there was only one other person that could have been Sharp, and he looked like a guy that would be named Sharp. Stocky, muscular, bald-headed, Hispanic, and permanently scowling. He looked like he hated anyone he made eye contact with, and was working out just exactly why he hated Jackson.

Stavros ripped the duct tape off like a Band-Aid, and Jackson choked back a grunt. “Looks like you caught some shrapnel in the right shoulder. Dec did a decent job of cleaning you up, but I think I can help a little.”, Stav said, as he cut away part of Jackson’s shirt to reveal the bloody bandage covering the wound. He peeled the bandage back and looked at the wound with the flashlight. “Twist around a little, let me see the other side,” he said, looking for the exit wound. There wasn’t one. The ‘shrapnel’ came in the front and never escaped, still stuck in the shoulder bone and tissue. “Dec, you need some range time. This turd is fragged; his shoulder must look like dog food on an MRI.”, Stavros joked. “Yeah, I guess I need more range time with my government-issued railgun arm. They failed to include that little detail in the instruction manual. The first shot was on target though. He’s alive because I missed.” Dec replied grimly.

“What did you shoot him with, some kind of flechette gun? This is like a tiny shotgun wound.”, Stav asked. Dec said, “hard to believe, but just a few rare earth magnets. Get that shoulder close enough to some steel and they’ll probably come right out, but it won’t be pleasant.” Stav turned and stared at Dec to see if he was joking, but Dec was just wearing a crooked grin. Some new tech he’d never heard of, at least. “Your call Jackson. Do you want that shit extracted or is it fine where it is?”, Stav asked. Jackson pondered the question for a few seconds. It hurt pretty bad, but it could hurt worse. Powerful magnets don’t have a good track record inside the human body. “If you have any strong liquor on hand, I’d prefer some wild west surgery. Never thought I’d ever get shot with magnets…”, Jackson replied, grimacing as Stav prodded at the back of his shoulder, checking for lumps to see how deep the projectiles were embedded. “Sharp, get a bottle of something strong out of the kitchen. Not sure where, but we’re fully stocked here.”, Stav said. Sharp hesitated for a second. He didn’t like the look of Jackson at all, and he suspected he got shot for a reason. Eventually, he relented, and went searching the kitchen for any kind of liquor. He returned with a quart of Jim Beam, and announced, “medicinal purposes only. Disinfects wounds and numbs what is gonna be a pretty gnarly procedure.” Sharp took the first swig, for good luck, and handed the bottle to Jackson.

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Wired (part four)

Beat powered up the monocular and panned his view around the room, testing it. He could see everything as clear as day in the dimly lit room, and the fireplace practically washed out the image before the circuits could compensate by dimming it. Another press of a button on the device and it switched to heat vision, with Jakob appearing in shades of yellow, red, and purple, indicating hotter parts of his face and body. Even the clear glass on the table was glowing a warm orange, with a purple, round ice cube melting in the whiskey.


The odd fabric appeared almost black, reflecting little, if any, heat. “I see you’ve found the thermal setting. I can see the colors reflecting in your glasses. Good. Leave that set, and watch the fabric.” Jakob attached two whisker-thin wires to the fabric, side by side, and placed his left hand under the fabric. He pressed a switch on the control blob and this time, not only did the surface shimmer and vanish, instantly this time, but so did his hand. “Is your left hand still under that?”, Beat asked. “Why of course. This is no common magic show.”, replied Jakob. Beat really couldn’t get his head around this one. He changed modes on the monocular, yet the fabric and Jakob’s hand were not visible, but they weren’t black either. They were the same color temperature as the table top. This was one step beyond optical camouflage. It was thermoptic camouflage. Optically invisible, and invisible on any light spectrum, including infrared. Beat was considering the nature of what he was witnessing. “Jakob, can you walk over and stand in front of the fireplace, and take the fabric with you?”, Beat asked. Jakob grinned, knowing that Beat was trying to test his invention. “Of course,” Jakob said, after getting up with a grunt and standing before the fireplace, as Beat moved to the couch, “how shall I hold it?”. “Place it over your face.”, replied Beat.


Jakob did as Beat asked, draping the fabric over his head, covering his face in the process. Again, he hit the button on the controller, and Jakob’s head disappeared, with flames from the fireplace where his head should be. Beat was only picking up bright yellows and whites from the flames, while looking right at Jakob’s head. It was amazing. He slowly sat the monocular on the table, never breaking eye contact with Jakob, in case the illusion would suddenly fall apart if he looked away. “Truly incredible,” Beat said, “but what do things look like from your side of the veil?”. Jakob replied, “what veil? I can see you clearly, well, as clearly as I can usually. “ “How many fingers am I holding up,” Beat asked. Jakob replied immediately, “four”.


Beat was well and truly awestruck. This seemed like alien technology, only the kind that humanity doesn’t ever need to know about. The odds of it being abused are guaranteed. This should not exist. “What was that, Beat?”, Jakob asked, powering off the device and removing the fabric from his head. “Did you say this shouldn’t exist?”


“Was I thinking out loud? Forgive me. I just don’t know what to think of this. The implications. My mind can’t manage all the possibilities. First, the optical camouflage, and now this seems light years beyond even that. It really is unbelievable; I have no other way to describe it.” Beat said, awestruck. “I don’t even know if I want to start asking how it works. I feel like I have seen a devil’s plaything.”
 
Jakob came back to the couch and sat next to Beat, as he rolled up the fabric and placed it back in his bag, along with the controller. “Indeed,” Jakob said, “it is a double-edged sword. To me, it was curiosity at the highest imaginable level. I never asked if I should have created this. I asked how I could. The pursuit of that answer absolutely consumed me. During early development, nothing worked more than once. This would die, or that would burn up, or the fabric had imperfections. One night, I had a dream, and the answer came to me in that dream, although… the dream was more of a nightmare. I was being chased, by something, and it got close enough that I could feel the hot breath on my neck before I woke up, drenched in sweat. Seconds before waking up, in my dream, I stopped and turned, and the thing chasing me passed through me, like a spirit. The whole ordeal made me rethink the solution.” Jakob gently coughed, and took the last big sip of his whiskey. He then continued.


“Spirit. The idea stuck like glue. What do we know of spirits? They were once in this world, exited, and returned in some form. The problem was dimensional. If they presumably exist in a parallel dimension, crossing over into ours, can we also cross into theirs, however briefly? Ultimately, the answer became yes, and how the tech really works. My head didn’t vanish beneath the fabric. My head…was shifting rapidly between dimensions. That’s why there was no heat signature.”


Again, Beat was having a hard time taking it all in. Now Jakob was telling him about nightmares, spirits, and other dimensions? The proof was all there. Even if Jakob was making up stories about how the tech worked, there was no denying that it absolutely did work, even when faced with mild scrutiny. No smoke and mirrors. The real deal. Even if Jakob had gamed the test by handing Beat a customized monocular, Beat’s own eyes didn’t lie, and he didn’t think such a demonstration, just for him, would have been a prank. It was, for all intents and purposes, black magic, and it gave him the creeps even knowing it existed.


“Jakob, do you believe in possession,” Beat asked, “because this all sounds like madness, but the proof is indisputable. You did this all, alone?”. Jakob’s tone darkened somewhat. “What are you implying, Beat, that a demon flew into my ear one day and told me the answers? That I made a devil’s bargain to realize my dreams? Ridiculous.”, he replied.


Beat said, slowly, “but is it so ridiculous? We have all heard about divine intervention, but what about demonic intervention? You were at a turning point during development, then after this nightmare of yours, it all seemed to work out. You suddenly had inspiration, a new approach, and like magic, you did it.”. “I’m not sure I like your tone, Beat. Is it really so ominous, to create something like this?”, Jakob asked. “In the hands of the right people, it could save countless lives. It could bring joy and magic back to this world. I had the best intentions…yet…I was not blind to what the world would do with this. Why do you think I kept it a secret for so long?”


Beat lit another match for his cigar, and puffed it back to life, as Jakob sat quietly and stared into the fireplace. He was deep in thought. Yes, it was dangerous, but it could be incredibly useful, like any other tool. It was also magnitudes more dangerous if misused. It must remain secret, if it must exist. Not even Splicer could know. Beat looked up from his cigar, directly at Jakob and said, “I want in.” Jakob raised his eyebrows, lowered them, grinned, and nodded his head yes.

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Snooping (part one)

Edward woke up shortly after his alarm. His head felt a little heavier than normal, which he expected by this point. At least he could feel, and he felt a tiny kindling of rage start a campfire about this time each morning. It was motivating, and he needed it to see this thing through.


The thing. It was all that mattered anymore. He made contact with an old Golden Gaia dropout and met for lunch. Over lunch, he and Jose discussed that day’s events, as best they could recall. Everyone remembered the lights going out, the emergency red lights going on, and the carnage that followed. Jose was lucky that day. Not only was he unarmed, he was in charge of the actors and they agreed that Jose wouldn’t be given a gun; he might scare them, or worse. It was a GG secret that nobody had ammunition. It forced the actors into the illusion of a terror cell, which they maintained by being convinced that they were armed with live guns.


“What about the footage?”, Edward asked. “Footage. See, that’s weird. I know I was recording. I even did a test clip to check all the settings, and played it back to be sure. But later, the clip was corrupted, along with the clip for the broadcast. My comms device never plays games like that.”, Jose replied. “Did you ever take it to a recovery shop, to see if they could do anything to restore the clips?”, Edward queried. “Nah. Kept the corrupted files just in case it was a temporary condition, but I’ve never been able to watch them.”, Jose said. “Isn’t it kinda coincidental that everyone else, including me, ended up with corrupt data from that event?”, Edward wondered aloud. “Now that you mention it,” Jose began, “yeah, it’s a little too coincidental. We all got wiped. But by what, or why? Those little shadow things running around removing limbs? They came out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere, but they had to be there in the hotel to begin with. I’ll bet they never left. If we could get ahold of one…”.

That was the first step, right there. Revisit the hotel and look for any indications of the Shadows from that day. It had been years, and there’s a good chance they’re long gone, but if they were…installed…then they may still be there, or newer units in their places. Edward would have to discreetly snoop around the nooks and crannies of the hotel and he’d need to be ignorable or get permission first. That would be the easy part.
Edward and Jose shook hands and parted ways, and Edward jumped a Jerry Cab to the hotel. It was still in operation and fairly central to the city, so he didn’t need to give directions to the Jerry Cab, which was always a pain in the neck. They were remotely piloted by people in India, and he could never decipher their accents, let alone attempt a conversation with them. If he couldn’t get the Jerry to take him somewhere in 2 words or less, he just got out and walked.

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Wired (part three)

The fabric slowly began to fade away, as the surface briefly reflected the flaming fireplace. It was transforming and shifting light from any angle, shimmering and vanishing. Seconds felt like minutes, and Beat couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. This was actual, real, optical camouflage fabric, which could have been woven into anything. The longer he stared the less he saw, to the point that he even forgot Jakob’s whiskey glass hidden beneath the fabric. It was utterly and truly invisible by this point, obscuring anything beneath it and in direct contact with it. All he saw was the top of the table and nothing more.

“Blyat,” Beat uttered. He couldn’t find the words to express his disbelief. Jakob had actually done it, and he had kept it all to himself. Not a single other person on earth knew about this. They couldn’t. Beat gazed upon true danger, and yet, there was nothing to see.

Jakob was grinning ear to ear. He knew the magnitude of what Beat was witnessing. He only wished he could witness his success all over again, without any of the pressure. “And now, for my next trick,” Jakob whispered, as he removed the silken connectors from the fabric, “behold.” He placed one strand on his left sleeve, and another on the right. From the neck down, Jakob disappeared. Beat instinctively lunged for Jakob, trying to catch his floating head, knocking over his own bourbon glass in the process. As the glass rolled behind him across the floor, Beat stopped short of actually grabbing Jakob, as his rational mind caught up with reality. Jakob laughed to the point of a short coughing fit, and as the tears streamed down his cheeks, he belted out, “I got you, Beat! I got you good. You should have seen yourself. The only thing wrong here is the material, and maybe the battery life, but a change here and there…” The fabric across the table faded back into view and so did Jakob’s jacket shortly afterwards. Ta da, indeed. It was quite the magic trick.

Beat stammered, “how could you keep such a secret for so long, across 3 wives, surely someone would have mentioned it to someone else at some point in the past.” Jakob replied, “That was the easy part. What does it look like, powered off? Any old piece of fabric. I could have left this lying around the house for years and who would know different? I never made it a big deal, so it never became anything uncommon. It also happens to be fairly unbelievable, and I hadn’t really perfected it until after my 3rd wife passed. That left me with a lot of time, and a lot of privacy.” Beat nodded his head slowly, soaking in the clever genius before him. This still left him with a nagging sense of doubt. If this was the only man in the world that created this technology, and nobody was any wiser, was Jakob the invisible man? Was he meeting with the Bowler Man in the footage? Something felt off.


Jakob placed the fabric back in his briefcase, took another sip out of his glass, then retrieved another item from the bag. “This, I believe, is the pinnacle of my work,” Jakob said, as he unrolled another sheet of fabric. This fabric seemed different; it had a very geometric texture on the surface, like millions of triangles, edge to edge. “Relax, Beat, this one needs electricity, but not much. You’ve already made your blood sacrifice,” he teased, as he retrieved a different control blob from his bag. This one was greenish-white, similar in color to glow-in-the-dark plastic; long and cylindrical, with two obvious buttons on top. “Do you happen to own a monocular with night vision? Eh, never mind, I brought mine. Here, take it,” Jakob said, as he handed the device to Beat.

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Wired (part two)

Jakob replied, “To put it simply, yes. On a small scale, it could have been a very useful technology. Everything from children’s toys, to magicians, even for aesthetic purposes like hiding an unsightly gate on the path leading up to a country estate. The applications were nearly limitless. Who doesn’t want something to disappear, at some point? Although, as my work progressed further from theory and closer to prototyping, I noticed a sea of benefactors forming on one side, and adversaries on another. The pressure was building. Warhawks were lining up, taking notes for soldier augmentations and vehicles. With them, came the defense contractors, tempting me with lucrative deals of fame and fortune. All of them, harpies, singing me onto the rocks.” Jakob took a deep breath and sighed before adding, “I am a simple man of simple tastes. I have dedicated my life to science and engineering, and it has treated me well. However, I could not bear the weight of completing my research on the subject. Our government couldn’t adequately protect me from an enemy, if one were to infiltrate my circles, so I tore it all down. That ended my career. As you know, the same men who came to me with dreams of treasure, instantly blacklisted me afterwards.” Jakob and Beat spent a few quiet seconds listening to the fireplace crackle, as Beat lit his cigar with a wooden match. “Forgive my rudeness, Jakob. I have not offered you a drink, as I sit here and enjoy this bourbon. Would you like something?”, Beat asked. Jakob, lost somewhere in the hypnotic flames flickering before him, took a moment to speak up. “I shouldn’t. But in these years, and in your company, I feel obligated. I’d like some whiskey, on the rocks. Just enough to wet my teeth. Funny how something as fundamental as spit in your own mouth recedes with age.”
 
Beat stood up and made his way over to a crystal decanter and some sparkling crystal glasses, finely cut with a row of diamonds around the circumference of the middle of the glass. He placed a large ball of ice directly in the glass and covered it with a few fingers of whiskey. “Not too much,” Jakob reminded him as he poured. Beat chuckled and walked back to Jakob, bending slightly at the waist to meet Jakob’s trembling hand with the drink. “Thank you,” Jakob said, as he carefully took a sip and paused to enjoy the vapors on his tongue. “This is a very good whiskey; my mouth is watering for the next drink. Extraordinary”, he said as he took another sip, a little longer this time, really savoring the flavor. Beat chuckled again, and chimed in. “I’m glad you appreciate it,” Beat said, before working on his bourbon glass a little himself. This amused Jakob, who was already beginning to relax. Beat didn’t have an angle here. He wasn’t trying to get the man drunk to pry his secrets out of him. It wasn’t that kind of friendship. There was a mutual respect between them. Slowly, deliberately, Jakob examined the glass as he turned it in his hand, held up to the fire light. He was considering something.
“Beat, on a scale of one to ten, how easily can we discuss private things, here?”, Jakob asked. Beat knew what was coming next. The worst part about holding on to old secrets was the ceaseless desire to share them with someone you really knew and trusted. Beat had worked under Jakob before; he had never known Jakob as a young man, but as possibly the smartest man he had ever met regardless of age. He caught on to the suggestion. “Jakob, old friend, the devil couldn’t hear you in my home. I have taken so many precautions. This place is a ten out of ten, maybe an eleven. Considering the nature of my work, you can see why.”

This was enough for Jakob; he trusted Beat and if Beat said it was private, there was no doubt. “I would expect nothing less of an investigator. Perhaps now we can discuss the solution,” Jakob said as he laid his half-empty glass on a coaster before reaching down to his briefcase. He produced a rolled-up cylinder of fabric from the bag, along with a small handheld device that was black and shapeless. He unrolled the cylinder flat across the table, and extended two silky strands from the device, attaching a strand to each edge of the fabric. One on the far left corner, the other on the far right. Beat watched the process with breathless anticipation. Jakob spoke up. “The culmination of all my work, all worlds combined. But I need a power source to complete the magic trick. A drop of blood will do.” “A drop of blood?”, Beat asked incredulously. “Yes. I have a tool for such a task that retracts into the control lump. Lend me your thumb”, replied Jakob. He moved a hidden switch on the shapeless lump, revealing a sharp, short triangle, with a small ring around its base to collect the ‘energy’. Beat complied, pressing his thumb onto the sharp pyramid hard enough to break the skin, supplying a few drops before the mechanism snapped shut, so as not to leak any blood. “Good, that should do”, Jakob said, before flipping another hidden switch on the lump, revealing another mechanism. A singular, pitch black button. Featureless and unremarkable. As Jakob pressed the button, he let out a quiet ta-da, to match the magic unfolding.

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Wired (part one)

Infinite Beat was back at his home office desk, rolling a fat Cuban cigar between his thumb and index finger, checking it for defects. He carefully considered the texture, the grain, and ran the length of it under his nose for a good whiff. Quality. Maybe even perfection. These days, they weren’t hard to come by; many things changed after the war. But this was a pre-war cigar, one he had stashed away for years. Beat had been saving it for a special occasion, and that occasion was today.

There was a gentle knock at his door. He was expecting company. Rising to cross the threshold, he sat a glass of bourbon next to the ashtray as he proceeded to the door. He paused momentarily as he looked up at the orthodox cross above the door frame. It’s time, he muttered under his breath, as he unlocked and opened the door. There, standing barely over 5 feet tall, was a frail-looking, bent man with coke bottle glasses, a pocket watch, a wide smile, and a beat-up leather briefcase in his left hand. He silently shuffled through the doorway and into Beat’s cottage. “Sit anywhere you’d like, old friend. I’ll follow you,” Beat said, as the old man picked out a comfortable-looking spot near the fireplace, which was already lit. Light from the flames danced across the wall as Beat cast a shadow, sitting between the fireplace and the octogenarian. “I’m glad you could make it. I don’t imagine you get out much these days,” began Beat, “it’s good to see you.” The man smiled, cleared his throat briefly, and spoke up. “It’s no trouble. They all thought I’d be dead by now, or died years ago, like a forgotten celebrity that goes into seclusion. But you know… somehow, I keep on going. Maybe through spite, maybe unfinished business. No man chooses to leave the stage before his scene ends, and my scene continues. Nobody, including myself, expected me to outlive 3 wives.”

Beat eyed the old man intently before taking another sip of the bourbon and setting it down quietly. “Listen to me, pontificating like any other old fool. You asked me to come discuss a problem, not wax poetic about one’s twilight years,” the old man said, before clearing his throat again. It was clear that he wasn’t long for this world, but some fire burned behind his eyes, borne from the spark of genius. Beat was face to face with the man that was believed to have cracked the code that unlocked biogenic power sources. He may also have found a way to integrate nanomachines with living tissue, feeding on fractions of energy from cellular mitochondria. All this invention, this discovery, and yet, he refused to use any of it himself.

Beat leaned back a little and crossed his legs as he began his unavoidably long question. “The problem. Yes. It is more of a working theory at this point, and my understanding is that, at one point in your life, you had worked with very similar concepts. However, rumor had it, you stopped short of the goal and never created the prototype. Nobody knew why, and you have always been avoidant on the topic, refusing to elaborate further after destroying your documentation on the subject. Volumes. You were the foremost expert on…” when Beat was suddenly interrupted by Jakob.
 
“Optical camouflage. Yes. I did study it, mostly on a blackboard. Lots of equations, scribblings trying to mimic the secrets of nature. But I did stop short. Not for the reasons most would expect”, Jakob replied before removing his glasses to clean the lenses with a carefully folded handkerchief from his jacket pocket. He continued. “You see, our history on this planet has been spent essentially reverse engineering what nature has already done well. Nuclear energy, not much different than our own sun. Centuries are filled with these things, millions of man-hours poured into some of them. Each time, man was convinced that there was a problem to solve, and the solutions were waiting to be discovered, created, implemented. War. Farming. Industry. Always a means to an end. Although, occasionally, man has been so eager to solve the problem, he didn’t stop to think if he should.”
Beat had another sip of bourbon before his reply. “Da, the contradiction of science. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Countless examples, truly. Bioweapons, advanced warfare, terrifying weaponry that could poison humanity for millennia. Tonight, we are discussing evasion. What man hid in the shadows that could roam freely in the light? It wouldn’t be necessary. To what ends, for what purpose…in those answers, the concerns lie. Was this an issue during your research, Jakob?”

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Aftermath (part two)

The evac arrived after Dec had fished the van’s keys out of the crew’s pockets and made sure they fit the one in the parking lot. It was theirs all right. One of the evac crew volunteered to drive it to a disposal facility not far from Sheep’s house. That made room for one more person on the big evac quad and freed up the tow line to take Dec’s quad somewhere else. The storm was letting up now, and petering out with just some distant thunder and cloud to cloud lightning. Res was beginning to come around and was not too thrilled with having a tampon shoved up her nose. “I guess it’s practical but a little embarrassing,” she quipped. “Aw, plenty of boxers have dealt with it. Better than bleeding and hey, I even left the string on for ya so you don’t have to touch it to remove it.”, Dec replied wryly. Res poked at her cheek, which was starting to warm up, and pressed the bag of half melted dumplings to her face. Sheep had changed into some fresh clothes for the journey and loaded the crew’s duffle bag with some belongings. Nobody was sure how long he’d have to be away from home, so he took a little bit of everything with him. Clean socks, underwear, a toothbrush, deodorant, and a little bottle of soy sauce, just in case. “You guys go ahead and board the quad. I’m gonna check in with Mr. Clean real quick.”, Dec said, as he motioned towards the door.

He unmasked the other two men and took pictures of their faces with his comms, for identification. The cleaning crew was already busy, looking for anything unusual and cleaning up blood splatter wherever it had landed. Dec noticed a flat, dime-sized disc on the floor near the couch, and picked it up to get a better look. It was a 9mm pistol round, with a polymer jacket; self-defense ammo. It had obviously been fired from a gun and hit something hard and flat, deforming on impact, then falling to the ground. “Damn, Res, remind me to never piss you off”, Dec thought, as he realized what must have happened.
 
“Mr. Clean, there’s gunshot residue in this area. Be sure and get that too,” he said to the cleaning crew. Dec called his team lead again, tapping the comms to send him the photos of the ‘snatch and grab’ guys for identification, and letting him know that one of the Splicer analysts got a shot off on them before Dec was on scene. “Didn’t do much good, all of the guys were armored up, level 3. Probably just upset whoever got hit, which… well, we’ll debrief soon.”, Dec said. His lead instructed him to evac to location 242 immediately and bring his captive with him. Jackson was still taped to the kitchen chair and still unconscious, so Dec cut him out of the chair, fastened his wrists with the nylon handcuffs, and threw him over his shoulder. Back to the elevator then outside to the quad, where Res and Sheep were waiting, looking like they were half-dead from this ordeal. Sheep protested bringing Jackson aboard. “Dec, do you really have to bring that guy? Why not just ‘have an accident’ and leave him with the disposal team?”, Sheep whined. Dec stopped dead in his tracks, and stared Sheep directly in the face. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”, Dec growled. “This poor bastard probably knows everything we want to know, and he’s lucky to be alive.”, Dec said. Res scoffed, “Well, I wouldn’t miss the guy.”

The quad pilot lifted off after confirming the destination, 242. He found Dec’s toasted quad nearby and maneuvered the tow line onto the vehicle. With Dec’s damaged quad in tow, the pilot hit a button for autonomous flight which told Dec’s quad to power up and maintain altitude. The pilot’s tow quad would do all the maneuvering but it limited their speed.

They were headed towards 242 at a steady pace. It was a safehouse, about 30 miles out, close to the harbor. Everyone sat quietly during the trip, until they heard a “hmmpf mmmpf” from Jackson, who was just waking up and probably in some pain from his shoulder. Nobody even bothered to look in his direction except for Dec, who glanced at him just to make sure he was still immobilized and strapped in. It was a short flight to the harbor, and the pilot tapped a few buttons to bring Dec’s quad to rest so they could land and disembark. “On your feet, now.” Dec commanded Jackson, after unstrapping him from his seat. Jackson complied, and Res kicked him in the shin as she started to exit the quad. “Oops, sorry.”, she said, walking out toward the harbor house. The pilot stayed seated and hit a switch to close the gullwing doors on the tow quad after everyone was out and Dec slapped the roof twice. Dec made a motion with his arms, like turning a huge wrench, and pointed at his quad. The pilot nodded, and both quads ascended together, as he left the site and towed Dec’s quad to the service hangar.

Sheep, Res, Dec, and Jackson all formed an informal single-file line and headed into the safehouse. The door was already unlocked, and it was solid steel, opening inward with a shove. Sheep noticed the thickness and weight of the door, and Dec glanced over his shoulder and said, “you won’t open this door for anybody, for sure. It’s the kind that keeps the bad guys out.”. They wandered into the drab and dusty living room and all picked out a place to sit. Res just wanted to sleep for about a day. “Don’t get too comfortable,” Dec announced, “because when my team lead gets here, we’re moving.”.

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Aftermath (part one)

Dec knew the job wasn’t done. Like any good rescue mission, after the hostages were freed, the next phase began. He checked the snatch team’s bodies for knives to free Sheep and Res from their nylon handcuffs. He removed Sheep’s head covering and told him, “This is gonna hurt. Your beard may suffer a little. Just curl your toes for a second.”, as he ripped the duct tape off in one quick motion. “OOOOWWWwww, jeez,” Sheep yelled after spitting out the gag, “is that your idea of a warning?”

Dec replied, curtly, “yeah, you’re welcome. I roasted a quad to get here. I should still be at the bar throwing back tall boys. So pardon me if I’m rushing things. I’ve been rushing for the past ten minutes. You clowns almost got yourselves killed. We’ll go over the details later. Got a few more tasks.” Dec went to the bathroom and retrieved a cool, wet washcloth, and began cleaning Res up, as best he could. “I warned you Res…I warned you”, Dec murmured as he wiped the blood off her face. “Sheep, make yourself useful. You got any frozen peas or whatever in the fridge?”, he asked. Sheep walked over to the freezer and surveyed the situation. No peas, but a bag of frozen dumplings would have to work. “Here, use this”, Sheep said, tossing the bag to Dec, still on the floor with Res. Dec applied the frozen dumpling bag to Res’s bruised cheek, hoping to bring the swelling down. Nasty hits she must have taken, real tough guys to beat up a girl. “Sheep, close that door and don’t open it for anyone. I don’t care if Jesus Christ himself knocks, you tell him you’re going to hell.”, Dec barked, and Sheep complied. “C’mere, hold this on her cheek. Roll it around a little… if it’s freezing your hand, it’s freezing her face. I need to make sure these guys were alone, and mop up this mess.”, Dec said.

Dec secured Jackson and taped him to a kitchen chair with the crew’s own duct tape. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The magnets that nailed his shoulder did a lot of muscle damage, but he wasn’t bleeding profusely. Dec found a first aid kit in the bathroom, and made an effort to bandage the shoulder. He was lucky Dec didn’t have time to aim better, it could have been much worse than this. He got off lightly and was still passed out from the tackle. Dec wasn’t taking any liberties though, and placed one of the hostage hoods over his head. Done and done. While Jackson and Res were knocked out and Sheep was busy, it was time to check in.

He opened his comms and hit the dialer button three times. A direct call to his team lead. After a few seconds, the lead picked up. “Hello? Dec, what did you do now?”, the Lead said. Dec had a habit of calling only when things had gone sideways, so the Lead always expected the worst. “It’s half of what I did, and half of what some snatch and grab crew was about to do to some of our Splicer analysts. I need a disposal unit and a Mr. Clean sent over to an address. You ready?”, Dec asked, waiting for confirmation before giving his lead the address and coordinates. “Send a heavy quad tow also. I burnt mine on the way over, and this crew’s van needs to relocate. Anything on the wire about this yet?”
“Nope, looks clear so far. Sounds like you stumbled into something not very public. Are the Splicer assets secure?”, the Lead asked. “Yes sir. Probably seen better days but they’re alive and as safe as they can be with me here. We might be on a short leash though… someone is going to expect this crew to check in soon, and I got one left breathing. The other two chose poorly. I got no way to exfil at this point so we’ll need a lift out of here soon. Three of us plus one of this crew.”, Dec said.
 
It felt like wartime, and he was talking like wartime, asking for an evac after the mission was complete. It had been a mission, and a successful one, thanks to 15, Dec’s terminator arm, and a handful of magnets from the Moderns. He knew what the other outcomes would have been. He was more impressed that the Archer unit arrived on schedule and nailed the last target. Their organization was very effective, if it had enough info. Mr. Clean was their code word for a forensic cleanup crew that would show up and make it look like nothing ever happened. They’d even replace the glass in the window. Although, Sheepdog wouldn’t be able to come home for a while, and if anyone captured video of Res at this address, neither could she. “One last request,” Dec added, “we’ll need a secure third-party location for the Splicer assets. They can’t stay here and one of them can’t come back here until we’ve done some homework.”

“Copy that. When evac gets there, tell them you’re going to 242 as the destination. I’ll meet you there. We’ll debrief in an hour”, the Lead replied. Now the wheels were set in motion. Splicer was well equipped for situations like this; it was part and parcel of the security service it sold.

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Cheapdog (part seven)

As the door opened, Dec saw the second man standing in the background, weapon aimed directly at the door. Armed men. Armor. The stakes just went up. Dec thought back to the white van in the parking lot. This was a snatch and grab crew. Their weapons might not even have bullets. At least, not their big guns. Too much noise for a job like this.

 “I dunno, like, 50 credits for the pizza, and then, like, uhmmm, maybe 10 credits for the tip, or like, more if you’re feeling generous,” Dec said. “Hang on,” replied the gruff man, before closing the door and fishing through his pockets for the credits. He came up short, and turned to the other two, showing 40 credits in his outstretched hand for them to chip in. The second man made up the difference, and gruff returned to the door. He unchained the lock, and opened the door further.

As he extended his left hand with the credits, he saw Dec standing there, with no pizza. “What the hell? Who the fuck are you, and why are you soaking wet?”, gruff said. Dec replied, “a neighbor, coming to see what all the noise was. I live downstairs.” “Unlikely,” the gruff man said, “get your ass in here. Hands up, slick.”

Dec obeyed, and placed both hands behind his head as he slowly stepped through the doorway. Three men, all armored, looked to be level 3 soft armor. His sidearm wouldn’t have helped anyway, just pissed them off. Sheep was cuffed and hooded, and Res was laying on the floor with a pretty nasty bruise on one cheek and a bleeding nose. He counted in his head, estimating the time before backup showed up, and he planned to be alive after the cavalry arrived. The gruff man motioned to the second man. “Check him out,” he said, as the second man approached him for a pat down. “Easy big fella,” he said, and after patting him down, finding nothing, he said, “now show me your hands.”

Dec set his jaw, and lowered his hands to his sides, both fists clenched tightly. “I don’t like guns, guys. Especially if they’re pointed at me; really makes me nervous.”, Dec said. “Well, that’s too bad, princess. You came to the wrong place at the wrong time. You’d probably be smart to just, I dunno, turn around and leave. Or, you can stay here and add to the body count. Don’t care either way,” gruff said, “your move.”

“I have a better idea,” Dec replied, “how about you guys put down your guns, and I’ll beat all three of you with my bare hands? Or, I can keep stalling, and more friends will show up, then it’ll be a real party.” Jackson chuckled. A three on one fight? No problem. The second man looked at the gruff man for the next step. It was dawning on the gruff man that this guy wasn’t bluffing. He recognized one of the tattoos, snaking its way up his arm, and he knew only the most elite soldiers were allowed to get that design. Still, they had the advantage. “What could one unarmed vet do against three men?”, he thought, “these guys are usually drunk or pilled up to their eyeballs.”

Gruff motioned to the second man to lay down his weapon, as he grinned and got into a fighting stance. Jackson sat his gun on the couch and looked back at gruff. “One more thing,” gruff said to Dec, “show me your palms.”

Dec extended his left fist, palm up, and opened his hand. Nothing. As Dec extended his right fist, palm down, he squeezed. Hard. A brief, electrostatic crackle filled the air around him as three rare-earth magnets, tucked between his fingers, facing gruff, launched at supersonic speed. Before he could even blink, gruff’s body armor had been pierced on both sides by the magnets, leaving three bleeding vertical slits behind. It was a critical wound, and he knew it. “Kill him,” he coughed, as he clutched at his chest and fell to the floor. Dec dove to the right, spit more magnets into his right hand as he fell, and launched a second barrage at Jackson, blasting him in the right shoulder as Jackson was reaching for the gun on the couch, spinning him around violently. Outside the window, somewhere close, an Archer 1500 small drone platform fired its arrow. Glass from the open window shattered as instantly, the second man caught a 2-inch square railgun slug to the chest which punched straight through his back and chest, dropping him like a bag of potatoes. Dec got up and rushed Jackson, tackling him and knocking him out as he was driven into the wall. Res, dazed from the hit to the face, raised her head a little and said “Dec?”, before falling unconscious.

Dec breathed a sigh of relief. They would have killed her.

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Cheapdog (part six)

As Dec approached the dilapidated building, he was honestly surprised that anyone lived there. All those windows, but not many lights on inside. It was halfway abandoned, or looked that way. He slowed his pace to a jog, briefly examining the parking lot for anything suspicious. Nobody was out milling around in this weather, and the most suspicious vehicle he saw was a windowless, white van. It looked new. He checked his comms again and the single-eyed pyramid icon had a number floating above it. 37. The estimated time for backup was 37 more seconds. He couldn’t wait.

He kicked open the lobby doors, and one fell off its hinges and crashed to the floor as he kept moving. “So much for stealth, but this storm is good cover,” Dec thought, checking the coordinates on the comms again to see if anything had changed. He slapped the elevator button, and to his surprise, the doors snapped open. Nobody was inside the waiting car as he charged in and literally punched the number 5. The doors closed just as quickly as they had opened, with a snap, and he was heading up, fast.

The gruff man retrieved two more items from the bag, then turned to Sheep first. “Say ahh,” he said, before shoving a gag into Sheep’s mouth, securing it with duct tape, and pulling the fabric bag over his head. “Comfy? Good.” Next, he approached Res. “Your turn, darlin’,” he said, but Res, stinging from the backhand, spat in his eye instead. “Fuck you. FUCK YOU!”, she yelled at the gruff man, who was grimacing and wiping the spit from his eye. “Jackson, you got any hard feelings left about this one?”, he said, as he turned to face Jackson. Res felt her heart was going to explode now, it was all fight and no flight, and she had no business provoking them further. She just wanted to be out of this whole mess, yet her body seemed to have a mind of its own. “HELP MEEEE!”, she screamed, before Jackson flipped his rifle around and smashed her in the face with the butt stock. She felt her knees buckle from the impact and collapsed to the floor. This was it.

As Dec exited the elevator, he heard a scream, then a thump. “Goddamn it, am I too late?”, he thought, as he walked quickly but quietly to the source of the sound. Glancing at the comms, he saw a number 23 over the triangle icon. He would have to act alone, and he would have to stall. As he approached the door, the comms flashed, indicating this was the place. He knocked gently. No response. He knocked a little harder, and the men inside all pivoted to face the door. They looked at each other briefly, silently deciding who would answer, before the gruff man called out, “Who’s there?”. Dec replied flatly, “pizza”. Gruff slowly approached the door, which had no peep hole, and put an ear to the door, before saying, “You got the wrong place. We didn’t order pizza.” Jackson and the second man trained their guns on the door, anticipating the next move. “Uhhm, the box says 5223 Skyline Drive, unit 512? I’m pretty sure this is yours,” Dec said, “because it’s…like…the only address like this.”

The gruff man was starting to get annoyed. If it was a pizza man, he wasn’t going away. At least, not without a tip. He removed his ballistic mask, laid his weapon behind the door, and unlocked the door, except for a little, weak safety chain. He turned to the others, making a shhh motion with one finger over his lips. He cracked the door open a few inches, the length of the chain, and looked through the gap. “Listen, buddy, I’m telling ya, we didn’t order a pizza. What do you want, money? If it’ll make you go away, I’ll give you a few credits. What’s the total?”, he said.