《Shrapnel Star: Obsolescence of Gods: Episode One "Aberration of Ambitions'》


 Deity Incarnate

    DEIEFIED INCARNATE


    CH 4. The Deity Incarnate


    In the brief whisper between the age of Metal, and the age of Deities, the was almost an Era of peace which was sabotaged by men with the hearts of beasts. ¡°The vacuum of power can call those of good and evil alike. Idle minds invite new designs, Idle hands are the devils will.¡± Ferocious ambitions intervening with each other''s ascension, equal waves canceling each other out. A storm can¡¯t rage forever, the rain can only contain so much gasoline, Its Nuclear sewage spewing from delinquent behemoth clouds, like navy blue mounds that cried form deep fried war ridden skies where the liquid propane precipitation seldom took days off. At first all the plants died, but they did not stay dead for long, they were resurrected by their own defiance. They evolved to once again conquer the land, greater than before, with the lambent streams feeding their heights, peculiar defective anatomy to adapt them to the frugal sunlight of the new forever gray skies, now in paralysis, haunted by weapons of the apocalypse. The wheat seemed almost completely unchanged, its identity a symbol of mundane family life before sagas gratuitous war, a feeble placebo rural folk could cling to keep hope of a restored utopia on life support. conquering meadows painted the depths of the valleys with waves of the pale-yellow plant, that seemed brighter behind the gray skies. Cactus cannabis scavenged for real estate advantage, but the wheat was rampant and stranded its combatants in the pantheon of havoc. The wheat shackled the feet, cluttered with an entourage of symbiotic man-sized mushrooms erupting from the base, sprouting through of the perforations in the dark barbed bark of the ¡®Great Titan Pines¡¯. Their branches curved at weird round angles into their own entangled spires, with bright orange pines like scorpion porcupine spines, they were true overlords who ruled the land New Nevada that granted humans a second chance at rebuilding a civilization. But still war continued. No longer were engagements fought in great waves, nations remained intact barely, fueled by the mirage of possessing the keys to a one world order that none could seem to grasp, without having it taken by someone else before they can compose themselves into a semblance of prevailing order. It was a messy gurella war, metal golems wrestling in the mud for the crown of imperial supremacy. Even the wildlife had become less docile in response to the diminished influence of the societies of mankind. Zergs of coyote cougar syndicates, bastards of genetic assimilation, colloquially coined ¡®Range Wraiths¡¯ , sunk into a submerged prowling patrols through the veil of the wheat seas looking for an unaware meal, or some half-digested regurgitated spew to slurp up, anything to keep calories coming into their emaciated zombified carcasses or something they could drag back to their queen¡¯s subterranean petroleum lubricated hive tunnels, where a fury of yipping piranhas would await anything unlucky enough to survive the descent. The environment was the secondary arena each nation was also contending with, resulting in elevated prestige for those who were game wardens, or animal control soldiers for more immediate threats, both were now revered as defacto agents of the national guard working in union with the military to serve their country, <u>Odesscyrah</u>; One of the few nations resolute enough to continue to participate in the pilgrimage to the throne of the planet, alongside it¡¯s closest neighboring rival Afghanastasia. The bursts of wind sent waves across the surface of the wheat seas. During the days howls of the wraiths occasionally formed choirs, as the vacant meadows fetched the echos of muffled claps of distant artillery cannons like misunderstood sorceries to the creatures and humans alike to who had never seen the supernatural awe of a mechanized suit duel.


    A modest 3 story farmhouse, that was ¡®old as shit¡¯ even before ¡®Pa¡¯ left, but it had character it had charisma, it was an organic structure of serene rustic beauty, the type of place people would like to grow old with. While not completely antique it does have some conventions of modern technology to make farming manageable by a skeleton crew, a mom and her two young sons. Their house was inset in a crescent outcropping of prairie, being watched over by the juggernaut great titan pines which surrounded their house on three sides. As was common with farmers to lie on the perimeters of great pines, where the more affluent remnants of modern civilization built their colonies, to better surveil threats. The farmers lived a mostly docile life despite war raging off and on in other parts of the world, business as usual, everyone knew they needed to do their part to ¡®vanquish tyranny! Once and for all!¡¯ , winning the war was a community goal even for those on the fringes of society. Even those not directly involved in the conflict, knew a loved one who was deployed in a regiment. <u> </u>For the ¡®Fringe Farmers¡¯ the nearest neighbor was about 2 miles away, and their nearest plutonium rod station 70 miles away at what is generously considered a city ¡®Aurora Valley Creek¡¯ just enough essentials for the mostly farming residents to feel in contact with the outside world, named after it¡¯s never freezing river polluted with unusual florescent pollen, a bizarre debris secreted from the almighty pines during the frequent feverish rains, that made the river produce its own aurora borealis effect with the fluid glistening as if the pure sun¡¯s rays were reflecting off it, even with predominately cloudy haze overtaking most of the year. This particular residence, belonged to Anorlana Elaine Astramanthe her husband Galbraith Roy Astramanthe, and their two sons Vance Fayre, 16 and Zaith Draque, 12.


    It was a mundane noon in late June, the ¡®dry¡¯ season, or less wet season for growing non fungi altered crops. Where the rain usually was lighter or brief in mornings and subsided by mid-day. A middle aged woman clothed in pajama bottoms and a shirt that looked like it might be on its third use for the week, creaked down the wooden stair case with absolutely no sense of urgency ¡°The work wasn¡¯t going anywhere¡­¡± she assumed, as her boys didn¡¯t often clean things without constant reminding, not that they were lazy, just preoccupied with hunting and other more adventurous outdoor tasks usually, but she relied on them to do their daily chores while they¡¯re dad was away. She was late getting up, but she couldn¡¯t handle the tyranny of clocks, if she was tired, she slept, if she was wired, she kept plugging along, one part mechanic, one part custodian, one part mom, and that was how she liked it. She staggered down the wooden staircase like a moaning zombie in search of caffeine, around the corner to the open concept kitchen which was adjacent to the stairs but lodged deeper back. A window above the sink in the L shaped kitchen cove bleed in the vampire friendly cool light. She began her daily ritual, pouring coffee beans into the grinder at the top of the coffee maker, and checking to make sure it still had enough water to fulfil its duty. ¡°Another machine that I need to keep running¡± she thought, wondering why the coffee was not yet brewing. As she pressed the brew button a couple times to no success. ¡°Dammit, I thought I fixed this thing already! Why can nothing ever stay fixed?!¡± She said filling her head with a brief profane hatred for all technology ever conspired, but she had become conditioned to venting to herself, she was in charge of the household, she was good at moderating around her kids because setting a good example was more important than giving in to her frustrations, usually. She had indeed already fixed the coffee machine, but she had forgotten to plug it back into the kitchen outlet after working on it the garage the day before. Upon realizing this she was mad at herself but also happily relived, that she had not hallucinated fixing the coffee brewer. Her daily solace reflection time could be achieved. She reached for her cigarette pack that she kept by the coffee pot, with her cybernetic prosthetic arm that was completely mechanical looking except for her human looking ring finger with her gold wedding band. She had to hide her cigarettes indoors to keep herself from smoking them all day, she had to heavily police herself, as she had gotten out of hand in the past sometimes. It seems cigarettes go well with everything, except human health. They were her irrational love interest, and it seems mechanics are especially drawn to them, giving themselves a reason to take a break, as if they themselves have become some exhaust producing machine. ¡°Is it fucking Sunday again already?! Shit!¡± She seemed to remember as her brain fog began to clear amidst the unusually suspicious tranquility that was normally a bombardment of ruckus from her boys every morning, unless¡­ ¡°Ughhhhh how am I supposed to set a good example when I don¡¯t follow my own rules?! those boys are weasels if you don¡¯t keep an eye on them for one minute.¡± She thought, knowing the boys had been scheming since the day before, to skip church that morning, waiting to see if she¡¯d forget to wake them up if she got too pulled into a late-night project to even wake herself up. ¡°How did this happen two weeks in a row?! the days just bloody bleed together sometimes!¡± She told herself knowing exactly why it happened, she liked to stay busy, very busy, as busy as possible, while her husband was away. Anything was better than thinking about what might be going on in the war, which had shoddy battlefield footage in the media at best, and if it was good coverage, it would only amplify her anxiety. But church was good, it was her only non-business contact with other adults, which felt almost crucial to her sanity, even if the flock of detective crones loved to hoot about her irregular attendance. A faint residue of a ritual that reminded her of a time before her husband had been conscripted for what felt like an eternity, back when they all used to go together as a family. But those were a phantom fever dream of a time, back when her life felt truly rich, and her community had brighter sense of vitality. She lit her cigarette and took a few drags from it hovering over the sink, gazing out the window as the pale light revealed the symbiotic geography of her determination ridden face that was almost competing with her beauty. Staring into the open cove of wheat that thinned out as it crept toward the wall of the forest behind her house, she admired in the subtle beauty of their own quaint little oasis, which now felt more like some unrealistic incomplete simulation without her best friend there to share it with. ¡°Is this what depression feels like? But what is ¡®depression but lingering sadness?¡± She wondered, conspiring with her own grievances with the state of reality. ¡°It will be okay I guess; I¡¯ve got to stay strong for them. Can¡¯t let them see me like this¡± she said to herself, only half convinced, fearful that her sadness would somehow be contagious to her children if she let it out or let them catch a glimpse of her barricaded emotions. She inhaled the rest of her cigarette in more vigorous bursts as the cool light washed over her bloodshot silver blue eyes that she refused to let tears escape from, as she relished the sanctity of her alone time, while her emotional cloaking device slowly recharged during its unscrupulous intermission. She summoned her mind back into her body as she snapped back to reality, then she remembered ¡°At least I accomplished a lot yesterday, and that maybe I¡¯m just being tired and going through one of my moody phases.¡± Even though her ¡®moody phases¡¯ came once or twice every day, like a demon possessing her any time she left a crack open to her vault of feelings, like some sort of plague of black haunted smoke plumes billowing up from under a door to the blackest part of hell, where Lucifer goes to relax. She had become accustomed to having these visits invade her, almost like a friend she once knew becoming reacquainted, some perverse placebo impostor of love, a vampire demon with brilliant saffron eyes that glow with of as much sorrow as hers , that look like the sun¡¯s rays shining into on them, even when there was no sunshine not filtered by clouds, and there was no sunshine in a windowless room. The type of demon even the strongest willed people might invite into their bedroom by accident. She drifted over towards the couch that was the same cove water blue color as the pre-war ocean before it¡¯s radioactivification converted it to a supernaturally dark foliage green color for the rest of the foreseeable future. She sat facing her hulking tank of television set, that looked like a rusty brass quagmired chimera of scrap tractor parts assimilated it what could pass for a steam powered aircraft. But this set was top of the line for last year''s model, that her husband got her before his induction back into the military crusades, that could somehow mystically intercept news broadcasts and sitcoms depicting wholesome family values of an idealized society. The TV sat with its back against the same wall as the front door, so she could at times survey the doorway from at a glance, to make sure her sons were home before the conglomerated reign of nightfall. She sipped her cup of coffee while coiling one of her legs on the couch into a more relaxed position, as she awkwardly reached for her remote on the end table with her nonadjacent free hand that wasn¡¯t clutching her morning coffee mug like it was a hostage that might somehow sprout limbs and bolt out of the nearest exit like some tiny impostor kool-aide mascot. The black colorless glass TV screen turned on and filled with light, surprisingly without needing to pull the choke cable several times. ¡°Well, if I missed church service I might as well see what¡¯s going on, on TV¡± The fuzzy image of some church leader¡¯s face filled the set as he was talking mid-sentence answering the unknown question that was asked by the talk show host.  ¡°Well, you know how hard it is coping with fame Jessie!¡± Said the guest star, who was an older man who was probably 50 but looked 60 with antiquated looking glasses and an uneven thistle of white stubble all over his face like barbed dandelions. This was the ¡°Jessie Wright: Coffee at Noon¡± mid-day talk show, that Anorlana was regrettably more familiar with than she would like to be. ¡°Oh yes! I know exactly how hard it can be! Going to the grocery store has become it¡¯s ow stealth mission, people turn into professional football players when they want an autograph, I guess. So, this your third book already Mr. Narcman?¡± Curtis Narcman. ¡°Yeah, yeah it is!¡± Said the man in a more zoomed out shot showing more than just his face, his blisterous sweat glossed mass that barley still had any resemblance of a human body, as some vertical accordion machine one pike with an X shaped base with wheels on it was connected by a hose to the back of the metal shackle around his neck sat next to him pumping air into his lungs. He sat on a couch almost taking up the entire area meant to seat three people. located adjacent to Jessie¡¯s bigger comfortable individual chair, the type seen in a therapist office or a library. ¡°So, And I know the fans are dying to know, can you give us some insight as to what inspired you to write such an epic, and where you want to take this this story in the future?¡±  Pried Jessie , a man who could pass for Henry Cavill wearing a trench coat cardigan hybrid with a crater shaped collar and some sort of large shoulder pauldron woven into the fabric giving him a mix of contemporary futurist fashion mixed with preposterous masculinity which was the look of a modern men with the budget for high taste, as he leaned forward in his chair resting his chin on his palm in anticipation. ¡°Sure, sure, you know I can¡¯t keep a secret without dropping a few hints! Well all my fans are well aware of my first entry in the saga, ¡®Jeffery Dahmer: And the Spell Slinger¡¯s Scimitars¡¯ , the story is laced with the trapping of my own life, coming from a nontraditional family being raised by four dads, It¡¯s about a boy magician whose parents were killed in a forest fire, that gets accepted to a non-Co-ed boarding school for all boy orphans to become sorcerers, and his difficulties of coming to age discovering his heterosexuality in a homosexual world while simultaneously battling a ¡®The half Lizard Wizard¡¯ who continually attempts to steal his virginity and his own moral convictions of eternal celibacy. It¡¯s a page turner for sure! I don¡¯t want to give away too much, but in the latest edition of the story, let¡¯s just say the main charterer ¡®falls in with the wrong crowd¡¯¡± The audience releases a loud gasp at this reveal followed by a low cheer and a brief applause as Curtis acknowledged the audience with a goofy beyond jovial facial expression of excitement. ¡°And that¡¯s exactly what this country needs in such uncertain times, a strong message for the youths to resonate with, giving them a role model to inspire them, and I love love love, how patriotic he is! How he is willing to go to war for what he believes and is willing to sacrifice his life and his friends lives for his country. But I guess we won¡¯t know until you finish the whole series.¡± Exclaimed Jessie with hyperbolic levels of platitudes. ¡°Yes, and that is my only regret, in life Jessie that I¡¯m imprisoned in a body that is not fit for military service, and that I can only give myself to the church and my writing and not my country. So, I guess in that way I¡¯m living vicariously through my characters.¡± Said Curtis with glum look that he could barely morph his gelatinous face into expressing. ¡°I too feel your pain, I know a few people in my life who died valorously in the blaze of combat, and my life seems boring by comparison, so that¡¯s why I¡¯m all about encouraging people to do what I wish I could do with my life and serve the country. God knows that''s what Odesscyrians need right now, if fire in their hearts to win this long running war, which I know we are on the precipice of accomplishing. So I take that as my own silver lining, that I can use my platform to unite our people to overcome the tedious nature of this war and show that through patriotism all things are possible. And that¡¯s why I think your book resonates with so many people, and is so important right now in these times.¡± Said Jessie with a sniffle as the camera zoomed in on his face with his eyes reddening and welling with tears, one of which managed escape and drip down his cheek. ¡°I Know Jessie!, It¡¯s our love that compels us to keep doing our duty, our love of our country, our patriotism! My family motto has always been ¡°life, liberty, and the proliferation of patriotism!¡± Said Narcman with his eyes also filling themselves with inspiration fueled tears, as he worked himself up disrupting his own breathing , causing his nearby umbilical machine to pump twice as fast to fill the gas giant with air. ¡°Well said my friend It¡¯s been a pleasure having you on! And that seems like an excellent message to leave the audience to linger on, and buy his new book, ¡®Jeffery Dahmer: and the Half-Patriot Prince¡¯ available at all literature retailers!¡± Said Jessie after having his debilitating sadness miraculously cured as he stood up holding a physical copy of the book to show to the audience. Narcman pushed himself off the couch engaging some sort of moon gravity device allowing him move whimsically across the stage. The audience showered them with a clamoring applause as Jessie walked over to Narcman and a gave him a kiss on the cheek followed by a generously lingering hug even if though he could barley fit arms around half of the man¡¯s -equator. She sat half mesmerized by the level of theatrics they¡¯ve invested into their daytime show, theatrics, she used to buy into when her life was near perfect. ¡°How can they put this mindless drivel on T.V. anymore? War is death and when it isn¡¯t it¡¯s a thief, stealing precious moments of people¡¯s lives. The war was supposed to be over by now, how long can we continue like this? Until all capable fighters are dead? I¡¯m sure the politicians, would find a way fight each other with words, litigation duels¡± she imagined preposterously, but in this era everything preposterousness seemed like prophecy. The mortgage on hope was a steady stream of euphoria delusions injected by any outlet that could inject tempting idealized propaganda into those who refused to fathom a possible future of futility, desperation, and national defeat. ¡°My husband has been gone four years, minus the few vacation months he gets, which feel surreal and too brief, like short narcotic eclipses of reality, and even after his Initial 4 years , we had him back for 2 years. We tried to wait out the war before he would re-enlist, but it never came, I told him we didn¡¯t need the money that much, we could make do for awhile longer but he kept saying ¡®We don¡¯t need the money, but our country does need a future¡¯ as if he could see the end of the war somehow, a glimpse down the end of the tunnel. I didn¡¯t believe anything anyone told me anymore, I just wanted my husband back, my whole family, but I believed in him, and he was unfortunately very good at his job as a titan suit pilot, they needed him, now!, and they were willing to double his pay.¡± Anorlana sat meditating on how she got to this point, but it never made sense. ¡°Why did I let him go? Again?! Am I stupid? ,or too brave thinking I could handle all this anxiety alone?¡± But we as humans always seek challenges we think we can overcome, like taking tests we know we¡¯ve studied for, or an ascent to the peaks of Everest, and ¡°I¡¯ve done it before¡± She told herself. But this time felt different as if her anxieties we multiplying, and her reveries no longer under her control, a beast she once held dominion over, now had dominion over her. When her husband was deployed, she too had enlisted for another tour of anxietous wonderings in thoughts of treacherous uncertainty somehow compiling into more grim machinations of purgatory, or some eternal, half sorrowed husbandless world. She was able to stave off the thoughts most of the time, sedating them by bludgeoning them back into the recesses of her mind with any latest distraction she could come across. She got up with a long upward stretch raising her human and robotic arm as high as they could reach, making the face of a yawning lion as she arose from her morning hypnosis after getting her dose of morning T.V. for the day, just enough propaganda filtered reality to provoke her spite powered body into doing something productive. ¡°Lets see how the plants are doing today.¡± She thought walking to the farther end of the living room past the couch over to the recreational sun room, which was converted into a long extended greenhouse for more sensitive personal crops.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

 A stroke of luck?

    A Stroke Of Luck


    , a touch of Premeditated mischief, flood of irradiated rain water pooled into streams flowing around the entangled masses of the wrestling root tentacles, a pyre of boredom fueled adventurous hearts dragged the two brothers into the dense jungle swamped trenches of called the ¡°Cedar Syringe Forrest¡±. A place characterized my it¡¯s awe inducing infinite torrent of tooth barked trees, a labyrinth of nature reminding it¡¯s visitors they are no longer the supreme beings in the universe. The seducing, paralysis inducing intimidation of the Black Atlas Cedar ¡®spire pines¡¯ seizing the sky with its urchin blitzkrieg of neon colored pine needles ranging from yellow to orange, to corral pink, in lieu of the dominant season. This was the end of the yellow season pushing toward orange with some hints of coral. The cerulean fumes seethed from the cacophony of chemicals in the fresh rain minted marsh streams, that transmuted the air into a glimmering blue haze of throat constricting , humidity dense fog.


    The caravan of two youths adventured deeper than they¡¯ve delved during previous perilous peregrinations, eluding the pervasive supervision supervision of their eagle eyed mother, beyond her permissible limits that were of reasonable sanity. Adventure and excitement often attempt to form an alliance against reason, sanity and rigidity, with it¡¯s insatiable allure of uncertainty intervening with the perpetual march of the mundane. The two brothers waded through the flowing , sometimes knee deep pharmaceutical fluid that could generously be called ¡°water¡±, their sleek steel boots scouring for any stable path they could detect with their feet, a slick rock was still better bet that than sinking your whole leg into a sludge of untrustworthy muck. The fog was a was darker shade of blue, an impersonation of dusk in a London harbor even if it was just barley noon, an enchantment of some vampire to repudiate the already cloud smothered sun. The older brother Vance led the way with a conservative haste, sleek full body armor of some non reflective bright colored stainless steel composite, easy to see in the slurry of rain, he was young but difficult living and athletic genetics made him look beyond his age, he could pass for a daunted 24 year old compared to soft citadel dwellers. Years of learning everything on his own made him a natural teacher and role model, to his brother, and even in some ways to his mom. His static charged, bleach burned orange hair could be seen overflowing pressed against the illuminated glass of his of his enclosed helmet visor like a sphere vault that had become infested with marmalade, with select isolated strands catching enough internal florescent light to match some of the neon pines, while his disregard for shaving regimes left his face a prickly minefield of gold and orange, that became a hazard for the girls at his church. The body of his armor were sleek slabs of steel that were more blocky contours of musculature, that was held together by a midnight navy blue leather jumpsuit to the fully incorporated gauntlets, for elite seamless protection from the natural and unnatural elements. Equipped with an oversized belt housing a bandolier of charge packs that looked clunky compared to the more slender armor plating, with a drooping holster hanging over one of the metal thigh guards, for impetuous uncomplicated fire arm access. These were legacy suits of armor for war foragers which became more and more ubiquitous as even the domestic wildlands became more indisposed with fallout. Zaith was an albino who¡¯s skin was even a shade more pale than his brother¡¯s poltergeist white skin, making resemble an undead incarnation of Harry Potter with his semi transparent skin revealing the dark blue veins in his neck, and the lightning bolt shaped one on his forehead. His hair was a more sleek and relaxed platinum blond color, that echoed his mother¡¯s side of the family, his red eyes with his frost white eyebrows, made him appear more sullen than he ever was, but the gloomy blue light made his eyes look a dull fuchsia color that made him seem more calm and relaxed amidst his kin of trees. Zaith was nearly the antithesis of his brother, years younger but his mind was beyond its age, unlike his body he was only slightly shorter at his age, but he lacked the supernatural savant athleticism of his brother, he was more of and indoor cat. He was more frail and clumsy than he wanted to be, his body could never seem to match the same octane as his brain, but that was okay. He and his brother worked well together, Zaith would follow his brother to the end of the world and back, but he wasn¡¯t one to lead the charge, he was a thinker, a speculator, and spectator, even at super young age Vance was always getting them into trouble , and Zaith was always thinking of the way out, together they were an invincible duo.


    Vance was the only person Zaith really admired besides his mom, and his father felt like a distant relative to whom he had only had bits pieces of cherished memory fragments of, even when his dad returned from the war it felt like not all of him came back, he seemed always slightly mired by something, a haunting replicant had replaced him with just enough personality too fool everyone but him, or maybe he was fooling nobody, and the rest of the family just chose not to see it. But it was different with Vance, he had some sort of unsinkable confidence in his dad


    ¡°A dormant torch of memories with dad from before the war must still burn within him, but that¡¯s my brother! He never stops believing in people, I wish could more faith in the world like that.¡± Zaith Studiously conjectured to himself while following his brother autonomously, as he was more interested in combing through his thoughts than the tricky terrain. Zaith followed in his more outdated gaudy armor, with unessential aesthetic adornments plagued by rust splotches. It was a captain¡¯s sub-nautical combat capable model looking like a hybrid of lavish roman gladiator armor mixed with an ancient brass deep sea diving suit with his glass visor only revealing half of his eyes and the bottom of his face, that was previously abused by his older brother until it began to fit him better. Their suits both had built in digital Geiger counters giving off periodical crackling noises of varying intensity, like listening to some freshly opened soda fizz. They enjoyed navigating the Forrest and mapping out paths by leaving reminders, such a carvings and voids of foliage, at interesting land marks they came across some of which, were abandoned structures who¡¯s custody was won by the wilderness, or natural ¡°Dead Zones¡± where there were somehow odd absences of radiation. They knew these woods better than the game wardens, who¡¯s numbers were frugal, and ranks spread thin. Normally they were given a lot of tasks to maintain their abode, which were strictly enforced by their mother, but she gave them Sundays and Saturdays to enjoy as they wish, with the exception of church attendance, which they despised, not because they actually hated church and socializing, but because it was precious free time they could use to go on expeditions. Even losing two hours shortened a lot of the ground they could cover and chart into their routes before the absolute blackness could maroon them for the night. They both had their own version of a geographic density map printed on the wall in there rooms they would continually update with new route lines and landmarks they enjoyed coining new titles for. Their suits kept track of their exact lines of movement when they wanted it to, so updating a route or splintering it into two paths was a seamless process. Now their maps both looked like big red flower shaped conjunction of lines, or a very very complicated overambitious network of subway tunnels in some more unhinged version of New York City public transit system, engineered by a delirious charlatan that was perhaps charismatic enough to sell people on one of his exorbitantly elaborate episodes of madness, while suffering from the mouth foam symptoms of rabies and malaria combined, that together, were still not strong enough to overcome his evangelical fortuitous ascension into roles of authority. Gargantuan tobacco stalks beamed up from below the tangled roots systems along the banks irrigated by the irradiated streams of coolant fluid, like some enormous leaf hoisting tarantula legs that would occasionally slap against their suits and they brazenly bounced between points of most secure points of terrain they could reasonably leap to. Their accustomed suitable routes sometimes were digested by the oppressive precipitation periods.


    ¡°Glad to see you¡¯re not getting winded bro! Looks like you¡¯re actually getting in shape¡± Taunted Vance jokingly a he chimed in on his wireless helmet to helmet communication system by lightly holding the barley pronounced dome shaped button on the exterior of the helmet , just below where the ear would be, slightly altering his cheerful mid tone voice, as if it was coming through a grocery store intercom.


    ¡°We¡¯ll I only seem to get winded when you get us lost out here¡± Zaith chimed back with a disgruntled roar with his raspier half mumbled deeper toned voice.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t even be half as much fun if we already knew exactly where we¡¯re going or what we¡¯re doing, we¡¯ve got enough boring back at the farm for the both of us. But I think we¡¯re almost to ¡®Cedar Sire¡¯ we¡¯re actually making good time for once, even in this precipitation!¡± Cedar Sire was the actual name of the place at one time, one the duo¡¯s more familiar pit-stop landmarks to reassure them they weren¡¯t taken hostage by the colluding condescending dimension of wilderness, one of their surrogate refuge destinations away from home. It was once a well functioning small town established in the post apocalyptic renaissance era. A quaint city overtaken by gangs of renegade trees, rendering the city¡¯s structures unsuitable, and the town¡¯s functionality disabled. What was once home to a thriving community of humans was now a thieves den of plunderous vermin folk, scampering delightfully into lumber skewered hulls of many traditional red brick buildings, assaulted by the carnage of time, and the dereliction of it¡¯s stewards. It was a marvel of near forgotten history of a time between wars. The sidewalks, asphalt streets were remarkably still in tact, except for the few eruptions of the black atlas cedars challenging their prevalence. It was another dysfunctional second home the boys could call their own, It was a dichotomy of pristine preservation, as if the rain had somehow altered time and placed some parts in cryogenic suspension, while other sections suffered under the tyranny of the gluttonous jaws of the jungle. Some of which looked liked some sort of fertilized grenades had detonated and basted chunks from the deformed unidentifiable structures. Adjacent to the wide terrace of the library¡¯s concrete steps, was the The brick faced clock tower with a still beating heart of an illuminated moon yellow clock dial, who¡¯s scathing gaze could be felt everywhere in the city, unless obfuscated by the shadows of a brick whale. It was laced with a cocoon of enthralling vines, as if some centipede spaghetti kraken centennial was enveloping the tilting structure into the seclusion of a mud mired fracking cauldron.


    ¡°Here we are again, home sweet home!¡± Announced Vance as he could see the city through the foliage clogged artery of the jungle. The two darted more eagerly up a collection of fractured stone slabs that once to added up to a concrete staircase, who¡¯s still standing steel rail was the only fossil that could report it¡¯s actual existence. The two boys made their way to it¡¯s plateau summit, A concourse of side walks wrapping around a street corner, that could behold the library across the street. They stopped at the top, to bash all but the most resilient chunks of mud off of their metal boots, clanking them against the concrete with the help of the the greasy rain¡¯s lubricative properties. They stood next to a green painted obelisk street lantern suffering from a metal based leprosy of rust that now controlled more territory than the dense green exoskeleton of paint. Attached to this particular street illuminator was a dark engraved brass plaque facing where the old staircase had been, was a sign saying ¡°Welcome to Cedar Sire: est. 226 AAE (after annihilation era). A testament to the fact the slither of human progress could not be so easily thwarted by an atomic apocalypse. ¡°It¡¯s only seldom past noon¡± Noticed Zaith remarking as he noticed the partially visible sky was a softer azure blue, that could be seen in the buzz saw shaped clearing behind the city. An amputated circular withholding in the veil of the cloisterous canopy¡¯s cartilage of branches, that were wallowing in submissive jujitsu techniques of the wind , who¡¯s jurisdiction was undermined by the constitute of human architecture.


    ¡°Let¡¯s chill out here for a bit before we get stared again¡± Declared Vance


    ¡°Sound¡¯s good¡± Zaith affirmed.


    ¡°I¡¯m Gonna go sift through some of the old rubble in the old police fortress, well meet back here in an hour, if not I¡¯ll come find you in one of you¡¯re usual spot¡¯s.¡± Said Vance with a stare seduced with intrigue.


    ¡°Yeah, you know me, I¡¯ll probably be at the library or up in the old apartment building.¡± Zaith replied.


    Their Geiger counters were remarkably quiet with the faintest crackle every minute or so, as close as one could get to a natural dead zone.


    Both brothers brushed their hands over a seamless button camouflaged by the designs of their helmets. Their helmets released a gasping squeal as the seal of pressurized air escaped their cranial chamber, while their glass visors sheathed into the helmets, like the wind on a car door.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    ¡°Damn that fresh air feels amazing!¡± Exclaimed Vance who actually took off his entire helmet with a big sigh of freedom. His bushy cyclone of sweaty red hair was forced into a more aerodynamic shape by the rain ridden breeze. Drops of the unfreezable water began to collect in his hair like meteors getting caught in sponge. He Put his helmet on to his shoulder locking it into place with some ingenious mechanism of convenience. ¡°I¡¯m going ¡®dark¡¯ for a minute bro, don¡¯t have a panic attack if you can¡¯t reach me for a while, I¡¯ll find you, I always do!¡±  He said with a flare of elderly brother arrogance and a tooth exposing smirk. , as he walk with an imperative sense of urgency away from his sibling. He loved adventuring with his brother, especially now that he was old enough to reasonably fend for himself for a little while. ¡°It¡¯s nice to have little time away from baby sitting duty, I''ve taught him well I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll be fine.¡± He reassured himself, still holding a fragment of his brotherly responsibilities in the back of his mind.


    Zaith rolled his eyes as his brother trotted across the glazed concrete


    ¡°Brother, why must you be so Intense.¡± He said to himself knowing no one was there to listen, with long drafted inhale showcasing his lethargic indifference to wandering around separately. Thinking ¡°That¡¯s how things always go wrong, we don¡¯t, stick to plan, we split up, I swear he actually just loves to get us into trouble.¡±


    Vance wrapped around the corner up one of the major city streets that ran all the way over to the clock tower, supervising the soaking city, that was a cemetery for a sedentary civilization. He now slowed his pace taking his time to politely patrol and admire , the precipitation preserved , appliance requiems of abandoned by it¡¯s ancestors. Walking along several weathered storefronts like an exhibit of aliens, seeing which extraterrestrial lair was worth extra inspection. He made his way to another store with a curiously large courtyard, containing obsolete obelisks. ¡°Peculiar¡­ purveyors of petroleum?¡±  He puzzled. He walked through the Greek Parthenon pillars supporting the platform above him next to the gas pumps. The grasp of curiosity¡¯s clasp was draculously attached and frosted his advance. He walked up and glided his glove across he big glass walls of the convenient store. ¡°A church? For commerce?¡± He murmured to himself as the commercialized design style was more acquainted with churches than businesses nowadays. He approached the obvious entrance, and one of the two automatic sliding doors was still functioning, and opened itself for him. the other door was gunked up by a ramen like siege of veins, and refused to do the same. He was right he thought ¡°This is a church¡­ For Rats¡± Entire tribes of a thriving rodent empire had formed in the absence of human intervention. They had built their cities an sky scrapers from the refuse of empty container¡¯s and snack boxes, turning the shelves into a chaotic convention of chaos. The presence of his footsteps sent them into a pandemonium squeaks, as if Godzilla had stumbled upon their society. ¡°Maybe these bastards are doing better job maintaining a society than us humans right now, huh? I mean at least rats don¡¯t have wars. Do they?¡± He stood observing them for awhile before he decided to be on his way. ¡°I''ve got almost an hour, I better get moving if get a better look inside that police palace.¡° Which appeared to be a place of royalty or another to their jury rigged scrap scrounged improvisations to their aging family farm houses


    That were the ubiquities of the rural dwellers. Which he had fond memories of, welding a staircase made of excess metal grates that his mom ¡°Got a good deal on!¡± , to the front porch. He treaded onward at more meandering pace, absorbing as much of the historic irregularities who¡¯s uncanny nature seem amplified by it¡¯s uninhabitation or it¡¯s clever invisible population. He walked several blocks on the sidewalk adjacent to the river of unused asphalt, that were in some areas coiled into mounds by anachronistic inauguration of roots and a confiscating coalition of trees, coagulating the dermatology of the territory, into rippling pools of wreckage. ¡°About time!¡± He said having finally reached the imposing stoop with two saluting, gun wielding gargoyles atop pillars on each side of the stone stairs of the brick bearing physique of police station. It¡¯s roof and doorways were crested with smoothed polished logs, with some sharpened like pencils tip jutting out at a 45 degree angle forming a halo of spears that would make even competent criminals second guess committing crimes.. located all the way at the other end of the town, it was on the corner before the bend at the end of the road, containing of the sprawling carcass of the train station, that was subdued by the clock tower harpooned through it¡¯s glass cataract contracted chest cavity. Now newly remodeled into arboretum of posthumous paraphernalia, a nest of non-congenial nocturnal hyena-bear hybrids, who¡¯s hunger hypertrophied them into less contentious carnivorous threats. The terrorous tenants somehow made the building more inoperable than it already was. The train station was once the only intended entrance of the prejudicial paradise, which was the main reason for city¡¯s recession of residents, when the train tracks had been capsized by the contagious captivation of invasive habitats, like an avalanche of branches. ¡°¡¯Cedar Sire: Justice Administrazion Department¡¯¡± He read off a plaque near the oddly welcoming glass entrance doors. ¡°Pfffft¡­ Justice for what? This place never had any crime, unless poverty was considered a crime back in the day? Or perhaps being a slander worthy pariah? This wold has no ¡®justice¡¯ anyway, at least none that anyone is actually enforcing, what a joke.¡± He thought with an air of arrogance. Reflecting once again on the sign he had read before, with less digestion on his earlier visit. He walked into the scantly lit building, with only sickly pale blue light dousing the silhouettes with an obscured glare, as it secreted it¡¯s remaining solar energy through the drop drowned glass, like some kind of above ground mineshaft for darkness poisoned prisoners. He turned light module one located in his palm which a harsh illumination within its range. Despite his previous visits, he rarely had enough brother-less time to conduct thorough investigations. The reception area was a polished wood floor, with clumps of mud formed into a Jackson Pollock near the entry way, with seating area for those wishing to visit people ingested into the criminal justice system. He led himself down the forsaken hallway of charcoal color bricks. He perused into the viewing windows of each room, scanning their contents with his hand light as he passed by, scrying into several rooms, including multiple offices and a fitness center. Allured by the bewitched enchantment of ancestry upon the abandoned temple of law enforcement, he continued to stoke the flames of his curiosity. Until he came across a thick glossy beige vaulted door, with a face sized glass square viewing window, that was a sterilized territory of that looked like a more barbaric medical facility. An internment camp for objects who¡¯s access was restricted, to even the most devoted faculty members for only a handful of sequestered minutes, from what he could gather. ¡°Radioactive exposure in this room I¡¯m guessing?¡± He assumed with a premature deduction. He slid the sledge of a metal door open, keeping a cantankerous ear on his suit¡¯s Geiger counter for any potential invisible hazards, but it remained religiously calm. He saw a kiosk station with a desk nearby, with a lavish looking sign on the wall behind it that distinctified the room as the ¡°Evidence Storage¡± area. The room had some sort of auxiliary power source allowing a beacon of perditionary crystalline green light to traverse the realms of mortality in very minuscule regions of quarantine, like a fluorescent bulb powered lighthouse within the dungeons of Hades casting an afflictionated aura of intruder siphoning decay, to prolong vitality in the dormitory of caliginous charged weaponry shrines. He lurked through aisles of shelves within the consecration chamber. His ghost blue eyes became solicited with a feverish avarice of prospecting some exhilarating cashes of a mythological arsenal, the likes of which were mostly impractical or inoperable antiques. But his nearly grotesque resolvancy for improvisational repurposement burned inside his mind, with a wild speculation of ingenuitous applications, based on knowledge of modern farming equipment mechanics and his occasional prophetic intuition. ¡°Damn this stuff is interesting, but mostly garbage! There¡¯s gotta be something cool in this decrepit filth shaft!¡± He told himself, in disbelief of the anti-charismatic properties of the provisions, or his own lack of creative deductions, after having sufficiently sifted through shelves of unsalvageable shit. But sometimes his best ideas came to him spontaneously, or overtime if he let the ingredients marinate long enough. ¡°If it was easy it wouldn¡¯t be cool I guess.¡± He told himself, remembering the historic phrase ¡°You can¡¯t rush greatness.¡± as it may have loosely applied here. ¡°There was one other place I wanted to check before I left¡­¡± He muttered, as another provocative secondary investigation destination descended upon his now inviting mind, as he exhumed himself from the room, and resumed to the light-less labyrinth of refuse residue, and gloom of his prior origin. But he was now racing a burning fuse, trying to undo time¡¯s slimy glue, balancing the brevity and thoroughness of his searches with the delicate artisan-ship of hawkish assailant immune to being subdued. Vance¡¯s metal boots dinged against the brick tiles illuminating the path before him cutting through the mist of ink. ¡°Let¡¯s see if there¡¯s a commander¡¯s office.¡± He thought, as he now escalated his speed with a anxious jolt of fury. He approached a room toward the back of the facility that was preceded by a more casual looking carpeted hallway with two opulently carved wooden doors. He kicked the locked door open in blatant disregard for the building¡¯s seniority. The room had stagnant musk of delinquent fumes, from the sewage soaked ceiling draining it¡¯s sulking wounds into several drizzles channeling from above. The room was a vast vacant tomb of some now unimportant man who used to be chief of this instillation. It had a window wall overseeing the seemingly infinite widowing caucus of trees, congesting the barley visible skylight with their serpentine strangulation of branches, who¡¯s shadowy breach of undergrowth could not be distinguished from the murky depths of the fathomless insidiousy of the swamp¡¯s incarcerating currents of carcinogens. The light halved itself though the weather extorted glass, making it the only the only room with natural unaided visibility, the window poured a majority of it¡¯s enfeeblized light across two once lavish couches separated by a glass paneled coffee table, that was assembled from dismantled pieces of some pharaoh''s misappropriated sarcophagus and could comfortably host a monotony of politicians. Faux columns interlocked with the walls scrawling toward the vaulted ceiling giving the illusion of grandiosity. The room was governed by a collection of art and artifacts that took up vacancy in any unitized space across the floor and walls. A tower of books that were for purely aesthetic purposes, due to the grammarless language screeches of the political lizard folk, overlooked the room from where the light could not climb. ¡°I guess abandon the rich abandon their ¡®precious¡¯ treasures when nature decides to take them back? Guess they wanted to donate it to me!¡± He said with nearly villainous levels of glee washing across his face, as the luster of loot liquefied into electricity pouring from his eyes. As if he had cracked the code to a safe using random numbers from a gas station lottery ticket, or some crazed over zealous cereal mascot caught in an explosion of flavor. ¡°Bingo!¡±  He thought, sliding an oversized chair to kick up an awkwardly placed rug behind the commander''s desk. A safe was nested seamlessly into the floor with a numerical touch pad on it¡¯s surface similar to a microwave, who¡¯s numbers had mutated from prolonged soaking into undecipherable hieroglyphics. ¡°Too Obvious! People are so unoriginal, I swear, they might as well be donating their prized possessions to me.¡± he said followed by laugh airing of pretentiousness. ¡°And lucky me I know the code to the safe!¡± He said flipping his ¡°Blast-Star¡± laser pistol from out of his gun holster like a switchblade, or an over eager dad flipping open a wallet with a catalog of of family pictures to show to anyone he could corral into a conversation. He sent a series of burning bolts around the perimeter of the safe, giving the gun a second or so to cook a more powerful shot before each smelting discharge. ¡°Whoa!¡± He said after tossing the melted door pate to side, revealing a silver briefcase that filled up the entire volume of the same. He slammed the case immediately on the table in front of him, popping open the latches sealing it shut intrinsically. The case unsealed with the squeal of compressed air escaping, with a wispy cloud of steam rolling out of the case. He pulled out the relic from its stasis chamber. A technology congested thermos shaped object. ¡°A weapon? Or a preserved sample of some kind?¡± He wondered scouring the object for an indication of what it was, or a brand of some kind. He noticed a blast hazard label. ¡°A grenade?¡± A slight sweat of anxiety swept over him now making sure not to detonate his new treasure or himself. He twisted some sort of ring unlocking mechanism, causing the cylinder to telescopically elongate to 3x it¡¯s size by unsheathing. ¡°Nasty! This thing would be super illegal, even for someone active military.¡± He now knew exactly what it was, due to it¡¯s iconic primitive shape ¡°Pulse Seeker Channeling Cannon¡± A weapon who¡¯s utility was not diminished by time, due the stagnation of modern technology by the impediment of war funding. Capable of laser branding a designated target, to follow up with a steady pulse of homing laser bombs, that could disfigure a sheild-less Titan Suit with prolonged firing. ¡°So this was the bread and butter of our disbanded infantry corps? Guess ill have to test it later to see if it¡¯s as awesome as they made it out to be.¡± He said while imagining testing it against one the great spire pines, by blasting it into shards of smoldering bark.

 PROBEMATIC TARMAC

    ¡°Guess brother, got tired of me, probably a lot on him, he¡¯s always trying help mom out, I think she gets overwhelmed sometimes.¡± Said Zaith as he watched his brother fade into the static haze of rain. ¡°Guess we¡¯ll see who finds the coolest stuff!¡± Knowing his brother, he could already imagine him bragging about how he always knows where to look to find the best stuff. ¡°Not this time bro!¡± But he couldn¡¯t help but at least skulk through the library again, and just glance at the title of an interesting book he might pilfer another time. He hurled his legs up the expansive blocks of concrete that only an elite athlete could call stairs, each time wondering if they had gotten bigger or if he had gotten more out of shape. He made his way to the vaulted glass doors of the entrance being bathed by the weather¡¯s barrage, It had the essence of an abandoned coliseum cathedral of books where ideas could duel for his sparse attention. Once inside he glided his gauntlet across the deceptively decrepit table, that was a titanic glossy husk of driftwood. A severed cadaver of Black Atlas tree, revealing the grooves of it¡¯s intestinal anatomy of dendrochronlogical history, who¡¯s rings were mutated into a burst of skewed stripes like the rings of Saturn. He crept through the crypt frozen shelves of book, like a hellway full of sleeping ghosts, relics of diseased knowledge doomed to purgatory, plunged by their own density into the forever raging sea of information. But Zaith saw them as a tragic untapped vault of potential energy that he alone could not utilize, or dispel their curse of invisibility. He climbed his way up the staircase that was centralized withing the library, guiding his glove again around the magnificent handrail composted from the same tree carcasses as the sprawling tables. A traditional ceremony he religiously engaged in when he visited the library on his pilgrimage for spiritual communion with the universe. But today he had an idea eating away at his mind, something he had imagined himself doing, that at first seemed fantastical, that now seemed perhaps doable. A flare of adventure inspired by his brother¡¯s love of a challenge, and competitiveness, even if usually he was only competing with himself. He drew himself over to window on the second story floor overlook an alley between the neighboring building with a fire escape stairway scaffolding attached. He deftly unlocked the corrosion ridden window with an unpleasant screech, being careful not to permanently damage anything in his favorite historical building. ¡°In Theory¡­¡± He thought as he imagined himself leaping from the window across to the opposite building¡¯s well lubricated fire escape, like an eagle ninja swooping elegantly across. He did however consider plummeting clumsily into the concrete crevasse below, knowing it wouldn¡¯t be fatal, especially in his suit but it would still ¡°Definitely, fuck me up¡±. A task that would be trivial for his brother, was a major tribulation for him. Always keen to test a theory, he stood staring at the daring gamble, trying to purge most of the anxiety from his body in preparation for galvanizing acrobatics. He paced over a good distance away before turning around lined up with the open window that was now splattering the floor with a coagulation of abnormally gelatinous droplets. He charged toward it full speed diving through the window throwing himself through it completely horizontally with his hands as the tip of spear, reaching for any solid piece of the structure he could grasp on to. He made contact with an aggressive impact, his arms flew between bars of the grated metal platform, while his helmet banged into them stunning him almost too long to lock his arms around the bars. His whole body from below his torso dangled from the platform as he recovered his attention from the staggering blow. ¡°Uh, I think I miscalculated the landing. Damn Vance , he makes shit like this look so easy.¡± He told himself sounding like he shouting in a tin can from outside his helmet, wrestling to pull himself up against the slick bars of the metal armrail. He managed to heave himself over the rail on to the platform noticeably breathing heavier, he took a sequence of deep breaths and admired the view from his newly conquered territory that could narrowly overlook the street Vance had set off to. ¡°Damn, I guess I never really explore enough when I¡¯m here, I¡¯m always so obsessed with the library.¡± He noted to himself feel an exhilarated sense of accomplishment, and he did it because he wanted to , not because Vance coerced him into doing it. ¡°It will be nice to take in some new scenery for a change, lets see what history this building has going on inside of it.¡±He invited himself in through the fire escape emergency exit with a perilously overcharged shot from his pistol. The building was tall complex of apartments with an open concept common area with a square shaped balcony walkway perimeter that allowed the natural light from the rooftop to scarcely graze down to the bottom floor lobby. He entered into the veil of darkness, that made him feel in a way claustrophobic, like looking into a mirror of cruel truth, it reminded him of the emptiness and nihilism he often felt and tried so hard to distract himself from. He wondered if Vance felt the same way. ¡°But how could he? He¡¯s so positive¡± he wondered ¡°It¡¯s like really am a Vampire, always trying to feed off his positive energy. Unless he felt the same way? Just going on adventures and challenging himself to kill the void?¡± But he knew his brother too well, he and his mom were the only people he felt like he actually did know, and he was an expert at hiding how he felt for the good of everyone else around him, he was an authenticity Geiger counter. But he could see the choke darkness was alleviated up at the higher floors, so followed the stairs zigzagging up around the perimeter of the walkway as he ascended. He made his way to the top residential floor before the rooftop access where light could claw it¡¯s way into his magenta eyes, and vines found a way to manifest their legions through the cracks in the top window panels. He gazed down below into the phantom abyss of concrete, unsure if a fall in his suit would be lethal, not a theory he wanted to test. He had an ambiguous idea in mind as to where he was going, trying to find the best vantage point in the city. He made his way to the top corner apartment room that was sealed by a steel sliding door that he did not have an access pass to slide in the kiosk. ¡°Damn it..¡± he said splashing the kiosk into molten metal with a more precisely executed shot than before, only to see it have absolutely no effect on opening the sealed door. ¡°I was hoping to not have to use plan B¡± He said moving 4 times his current distance from the door. He held held his pistol now with two hand drifting his aim from the kiosk to the door itself. He reached for his waist and locked an additional battery pack onto the one already inserted on in his pistol, a module design meant to be utilized on bigger rifles, for reasons obvious to their users, but could still be done on a pistol model for impractical purposes. He once again slide his hand back to it¡¯s double grip position, while flipping switch labeled ¡°Overcharge¡± which had previously been disengaged. He began charging a shot, 1 , 2 ,3 ,4 ¡­ 10 seconds had passed, A blinding glow surrounded his weapon and his hands as the weapon now began to sound like a plane turbine with it¡¯s oscillation chamber spinning so fast it began to shoot red sparks. The gun began turning an illuminated red color as if had just been made in flames of a forge, the same red color overtook the entire gun and it was now making a new siren alarm sound signaling that the gun itself was on the verge of completely exploding. Red burning glow began to take over Zaith¡¯s glove taking him by surprise, he briefly released a piercing scream of pain louder than both other sounds as released the shot along with his gun from his hand which was now erupting with steam while held his forearm while rolling on the ground petrified by the pain. Simultaneously the blast impacted to door blasting the door in half with a massive hole, creating a huge wave of smoke pouring from the impact zone. He lied there staring staring at the steam, with the smell of burnt flesh, rolling off his now exposed hand in disbelief. ¡°Damnit, fuck, how can I be this stupid?!¡± Now more mad at himself for letting his brother¡¯s trust in him seem foolish. He could hide his burned hand maybe a for a week or two if he was really trying, but the damage to his would be discovered in days, His mom was an adept sleuth. He could see her yelling at both of them, punishing both of them twice as much as they deserved. He picked himself up off the ground still holding holding up his permanently injured hand by his forearm. ¡°Well , it is what it is now, I might well see if I can still salvage the day¡± He told himself determined to somehow find something positive out of the situation, and he would wear gloves the rest of his life if he had to, to avoid his mom¡¯s bombastic judgement, for he too was a good sleuth. He crouched low enough to shuffle through the hole as the cloud of smoke dispersed into a creamy fog. At least he had been right. The apartment had one of the best views of the clock tower and beyond the sea of trees, and arguably the city. He found himself in an opulently furnished living with everything still remarkably pristine, except for the slag shards he had just blasted through he door. ¡°I guess when you¡¯re rich enough to live like a king in the middle of nowhere, you¡¯re probably rich enough to just leave it all behind too.¡± he thought while examining the room that looked almost, as cozy as his current home considering it¡¯s ancient aesthetics that gave it a vogue vintage mystique. An a historic telescope sat in the corner of the room near the two intersecting glass window walls. He walked over to it appreciating the vista. ¡°Let¡¯s see if this thing actually works¡± He said as he awkwardly took his helmet off one handed, which was only capable of a blurry digital zoom. He began playing with the revolving array of of glass magnification lenses, try to see the canopy beyond the cloisterous clocktower. He finally managed to align it with some clarity, perhaps he woulds see some unusual elements of nature he hoped. As he canvased the sea of gleaming orange needles, he noticed a black spec on the glass. ¡°An insect? Or a scratch?¡± He considered momentarily, but after unlocking the telescope, he realized the spec wasn¡¯t fixed to the telescopic lens, the spec was just floating in the sky. ¡°A drone? Or a monitor¡± but even those were raritys nowdays under maintained by the government¡¯s insatiable metal famine, anything that couldn¡¯t kill was a waste of money. He lined up the telescope centered around the spec, as he took a second to alternate to a stronger lens. ¡°Fuck! It¡¯s a ship!¡± releasing another profanity his mother and church peer would typically scorn him for using, but in this case it was apt, all but the strongest willed of puritans would be called to profanity by it¡¯s sight. He vigorously scanned the vessel, for any indication of it¡¯s allegiance, which he unfortunately found. A symbol that looked like a zombified bear roaring, next to the name of the ship branded across it¡¯s hull ¡°The Mordant Despair¡± This was not a flight route for military vessels, he knew. Worse even the ship seemed to be growing closer, not rapidly, just a slow paced hover, which was worse he thought ¡°They¡¯re scanning the area! Not good!¡± Also not a military practice on already controlled territory. He could see the trees quake below as the ships omnidirectional turbines assaulted the forest below with some absurd air pressure, like an automatic car-wash dryer, filling the air below it with a orange dusty smog with pelting torrents of pine needles. ¡°Pirates¡± a word his failed to register as anything other that superstitious tales to fear people into compulsory behavior. ¡°They cant be real can they?¡± He said never having witnessed an actual ship before. But what was wore he thought was the ship¡¯s disturbance of the jungle, which dealing with could prove a hectic nuisance, especially minus one pistol, and cost them precious time. ¡°Guess I better go tell my brother, he¡¯s not gonna be happy.¡± He made his way to back to the fire escape from the top of the building. But before he proceeded to go down it, now he could hear a weird murmur sound, he was confused as to weather it was a malfunction of his suit from the blast, or something in his local environment so he opened his visor, allowing drops the greasy rain to attach to his face with gravity deifying viscosity. Now he could hear the rain drops, but the humming was louder now, but he couldn¡¯t pinpoint a location. With a slight glance his scarlet fled to see if the spec of ship was still visible, to his instant disapproval it was now fully visible with the naked eye. ¡°Damn! I gotta go tell him right now.¡± Knowing the vehicle¡¯s approach was imminent roughly toward their general location. ¡°About 3 - 5 minutes!¡± A Jolt of dark anxiety charged energy gave him sudden burst of clarity and athleticism doubling his power, as a cold clammy sweat mixed with the mutant rain water. He glided down the fire escapee stairs almost levitating his feet as his his hands hydroplaned down the glistening armrail. ¡°Why would they come here of all places? These pirates must be pretty desperate if they¡¯re robbing poor people?¡±  He told himself as he made it down to the bottom of the alley in record time, Vance would have been impressed. He darted up the twisted sidewalk warped from the subcutaneous roots, vaulting over mounds of concrete and asphalt that seemed to be more condensed to his side of the street, scanning for evidence of his brother. Now the faint sound was now and audible distant buzzing, like some giant mechanical bee with a tangled swamp of umbilical electrical wires burrowing into it¡¯s back. He was now panting for air , realizing that he could not maintain his supernaturally summoned level of athleticism for long, given the limitations of more studious physique. Between breaths he caught a glance of Vance¡¯s fiery red hair. ¡°Why couldn¡¯t you just wear your damn helmet and communicate with me? I swear he goes out of his way to make everything more challenging!¡± He thought loudly almost wishing he could telepathically yell at his brother for making run an olyimpic sprint. Vance froze in front of the entrance of the police station, staring up at the sky also possessed by curiosity of the dull roar that was louder than the combustion of the medium tempo rainfall. Zaith now seeing his brother in sight , a slight sense of relief ran through him as he began jogging across the street. Once in earshot range, he tried to shout over the roar and the rain, his first few shouts ¡°Vance!¡± had no effect on his attention. He was locked in a trance not believing fully what he was hearing.


    ¡°A ship out here?¡±  Vance whispered to himself before finally acknowledging his brother, who he could hear but not react to, everything but the sound of the ship¡¯s howling engines were radio static to him. ¡°Zaith! We gotta go.¡± He said with cold firm assertion, as shot a stern look towards his brother, who was almost startled out of his frantic shouting state, into momentary confusion.


    ¡°Pirates?!¡± Said Zaith with a hinge of uncertainty, hoping he was wrong about what he saw.


    ¡°Pirates.¡± He confirmed with a tinge of dissatisfaction, knowing their day of exploration was over. ¡°Damnit.¡± He said throwing his helmet back on, having still failed to notice his brother¡¯s burned exposed hand.


    The sound now grew into an oppressive channeling howl, as an ominous unnatural wind caused the might trees to sway as if under a spell of drunken stupor, the flurry of needles was now as loud as the rain as they spasmed into convulsive epileptic shock. ¡°Let¡¯s make sure whatever they¡¯re looking for, it isn¡¯t us.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they¡¯re probably running some sort of H.D.M.S device, who knows how desperate they are. Would they try to take our suits?¡± Zaith conjectured.


    ¡°Unlikely, that¡¯s probably a drop in the bucket for them, maybe just fuel for the day, ¡®but who knows¡¯¡­ if they are truly ¡®desperate¡¯ to be way out here in Neo-Nevada farm country. Might be wise to blend in with a building.¡± Said Vance puzzling their scenario to decipher the best course. They both revolved around the building aligning themselves where the edge of the police build would likely contain a steel support beam. The vessel grew closer, surely they would gloss over the ghost town, hopefully not making it their arrival destination. ¡°What are they after?¡± thought Vance as the question consumed his imagination, thinking intel surveillance brokerage would be the most benign of motives. An Insane swell of air pressure chocked their body¡¯s natural movements, as if they were suddenly underwater. The whole town shook as if it was being attacked by an earthquake that somehow affected the sky and the rain also. A black veil of artificial night condemned the fragile sunlight to a memory. The monstrous assembly of machinery that¡¯s somehow wasn¡¯t a living being of it¡¯s own accord, stationed itself above what now seemed like a tiny town compered to the dwarfing majesty of the floating colony who¡¯s obscene stature could not even be fully evaluated by humans from below, but was at least 10 times the size of the city. Even Vance was taken back by the sheer impossibility of such a machine of such magnitude, That itself was a historic survivor of the ¡®Annihilation Era¡¯ most of which had been blasted to scrap, or slowly mutilated by the slow serrated sawing sword of time. Seeing one alive, inhabited, was supernatural. Vance momentarily considered what effect his newly acquired war weapon would have on the ship, thinking he could perhaps blast at least a washing machine size chunk from the vessel know that would not not have serious impact on it¡¯s absolute supremacy. Vance opened his suit¡¯s visor, and signaled to his brother with a peculiar hand gesture to do the same, now fearing that their suit comm systems could somehow be intercepted by some deviant technological savant.


    ¡°What should we do?¡± Asked Zaith trying not to yell in his brother face, but also trying to surpass the plague of sound from the ship.


    ¡°Hopefully, Nothing. We wait, or run if it comes to that.¡± Replied Vance.


    The woods shook as the entity of metal hovered above them, perhaps detecting if there were any valuables worth swinging a cutlass for.


    An inhuman pricing shriek sliced through the sound of the engine causing both brothers to wince in discomfort. Just then one of the massive turbines hanging off the side immediately exploded, raining cinder flares down on the shaded street in front of them. ¡°What the hell was that?!¡± Erupted Vance with more anger than surprise.


    ¡°Another ship?! or just an internal malfunction?¡± Said Zaith


    ¡°I don¡¯t like either of those options¡± Said Vance imagining the metal whale body slamming the entire town into a pancake. The screech of dread came once again this time sounding more distant from them as if coming from the other side of the city. Another engine explosion. ¡°Damn! Another one! This must be an attack?¡± He said half questioning himself , darting over to the perimeter of the sidewalk near the stoop of the building on the edge of the foliage that was concealing him previously. He gazed an the belly of the ship , but all he could see was a black silhouette of coagulated machine parts and the now two engines raging with fire spewing blobs of molten metal that sounded like metal coins when they hit the ground after cooling on their way down. He knew time was now an imminent concern most ships were outfitted with extra engines for bursts of high fuel consumption mobility, of which, the ship clearly had an excess of, but not unlimited of them, but ¡°How many?¡± he wondered , and ¡°who in the hell in the middle of nowhere would be brave enough to attack a ship that large on short notice?! Even the game wardens would take at least a day to coordinate a combat response to such an imposing pirate threat.¡± Even for game wardens it wasn¡¯t as simple as just blasting identified pirate ships out of the sky, unless a high enough bounty would call for such a hunt. They often just kept tabs on them like circling sharks swarms in offshore waters. Even pirates have off seasons between plundering, times of battles and times of hibernation, and given a strict budget on the already economically frugal government, pirate bountys were usually handled on a profit margin cost basis. ¡°Pirates vs. Pirates?¡± he wondered, and what absurdity could even lead to such an event. He gazed in a hypnotic state staring toward the clearing of canopy at the end of the city that was now more a view of the battleship than the skyline. As he stared his questions instantly were answered. ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡± his mind bellowed with the incomputable odds of what he was witnessing, that he himself was actually seeing with his own eyes. Two legends colliding. Just on the edge of the horizon he saw what looked like a black meteor crash into the side of the ship, that was about as big as 1000 washing machines, if they could fuse into some horrific beast with limbs and wings. The true apex ambassadors of the jungle. He couldn¡¯t believe he was actually seeing ¡°A ¡®Writhing Raven Roach¡¯¡± Having only heard the term coined exclusively in early A.A.E. historical documents as mythological beastly incarnations of the boogeyman. Ancient alien agents of aviation, who¡¯s existence proved a threat to the survival of humanity at one time, prayed to be extinct once and for all. Beautiful majestic administrators of carnage and death. He analyzed every attribute of the creature with a morbid curiosity. Summoning every last detail in his memory to the surface to compare the details of the legends with what he could see before him. He sealed his visor back over his face so he could zoom back in on the creature now slamming it¡¯s claws into the side of the ship. He fearfully admired it¡¯s black exoskeleton scaled wings, what would be feathers on a birds wing were black scales with a thin shine of reflected light on them, with the upper body physique of an insect like gorilla with mantis blades where it¡¯s fingers should be, it had cat like shape to is feet that connected to it¡¯s segmented carapace body all of which were made of the same clearly bulletproof insect exoskeleton, evident by the veil of machine fire bouncing off it with a stream of sparks. It¡¯s tail was a thin whip with barbs like a stingray, that it was currently plunging into the ships hull, sawing through it to great success. But it¡¯s head was the most grotesque part, somewhere between mantis and dragons with mandibles alongside it¡¯s jaws full of saber tooth fangs , and armored plates of exoskeleton scales over it¡¯s face and it¡¯s four curled horns sprouting from it¡¯s head and neck, with burning yellow serpent eyes that looked like a moon lit by two suns on a pitch black night, to steal your attention away from all of it¡¯s built in tools for human harvesting. Analyzing the beast for or a minute or so brought back some of the less prominent features of the creature to Vance¡¯s mind, who was too focused to hear his brother try to communicate with him through the intercom. ¡°¡¯It¡¯s icy breath could render anything but a plasma shielded ship or a geyser of magma, into a fragile statue of crystal, It¡¯s tongues were fully articulated lassos to hell. It¡¯s shrill shrieks mimicking a dying creature in agony begging for the sweet release of death, were only a clever ruse to lure an overconfident predator, into the gullible serendipity of a free lunch, only to meet its early demise ¡¯¡± Some demon diseased relative of the black jay bird, which itself was somewhere between a falcon and a crow. As he watched in anticipation, now joined by his brother who stood with the same statuesque marveling of current events. A second screeching being of horror slammed into the other side of the ship, with enough force to momentarily destabilize the behemoth machine. Two ancient legendary insect bird lizards fighting a giant demon of machinery. ¡°Who would win?¡± they both thought. Before the second writhing roach raven could harpoon it¡¯s tail through the ship, began glowing with a semi transparent glaze of energy, releasing static discharges of red lightning, one of which jolted directly in the face of one of the creatures to it¡¯s angered howl of disapproval. With a few seconds of delay a charged dome of racing electrical energy formed a perfectly symmetrical barrier around the ship, immediately slicing off the several limbs of the creatures, decapitating the farther one. ¡°It has a plasma field!¡± exclaimed Vance, amazed that they still had functioning version aboard such an archaic vestige of warfare ¡°Definitely contraband technology.¡± thought Zaith, given a shield¡¯s ability to bore half a mile into the earth with only one iridium core. The both stood frozen, beholding the event as if it was a cinematic experience, forgetting they were now exposed and in potential danger, as the enraged dismembered beast plummeted towards the town. An arm, a leg , a tail, a wing, and a chunk of one side of it¡¯s jaw had been precisely cleaved off, leaving behind glowing cauterized woulds like the end of a freshly lit cigarette. The creature slammed down into a building across the street from the releasing a much less powerful screech, it exploded into a cloud of dust propelled by the impact wave.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    ¡°Damn! You ok Zaith?¡± Asked Vance as he recovered from his defensive posture after the fog of dust had engulfed them.


    ¡°Yeah! Fine, just can¡¯t see with all this dust.¡± Zaith Replied.


    ¡°We, should probably get out of here for the day.¡± Said Vance in a disgruntled tone, as if the calamity had foiled his day of tranquil exploration. ¡°But first let''s see if we can get a ¡®souvenir¡¯ from the roach raven.¡± The pressure from the engines dissipated as they rotated for forward acceleration. The wounded ship fled with some of it¡¯s engines bleeding magma in disrepair. They heard the ship¡¯s presence depart as the cloud of dirt thinned into mist, returning a radius of 10ft. To their vision. The two brothers crept towards the impact site, which was now a crater surrounded by a steep 6ft. mound of debris. They overcame the edge of the bowl , that seemed determined to detour them, as their boots were swallowed with every step by the extra adhesive mud that was an alien progeny of the rain.


    They descended wearily down the slope of the bowl to the edge of the basin, which had in minutes become a medium sized pond that was a starless midnight blue sky color. The beast layed slumped in the pool of soup nearly completely submerged face down with a wing a back leg and the remainder of the tail segment exposed. The fluid surrounding the beast had solidified into a human sized perimeter of ice, so cold its fumes were turning any drizzle passing through it¡¯s ambience to turn into wispy flakes of snow.


    ¡°Icy breath! I''ve never seen anything like that in real life before.¡± Said Zaith through his intercom with an excited tone layered with concern.


    ¡°Be careful, It¡¯s probably still alive.¡± Said Vance as he waltzed delicately through the mud, taking care not to submerge his leg in it, around to the to other side of the swamp¡¯s halo perimeter. Seemingly while putting himself more at risk, encroaching on the beast¡¯s partially exposed leg and the remainder of it¡¯s tail.


    ¡°You¡¯re one to talk!¡± Implying that Vance was the usual suspect to put them at risk. He curiously walked into the water about leg height, more fascinated by the thin sheets of ice forming on the water¡¯s surface, pushing one like a flat raft across the surface with his still suited finger. Vance saddled the edge of the severed tail and began sawing at one of its cracked barbs with a series of serrated blades that protracted from within his suit on the edge of his palm as if were going to deal a destructive karate chop.


    ¡°Yeah! This should be a awesome memento, nobody would believe us that these thing¡¯s still exist we don¡¯t have anything to show for it.¡± He told his brother already imagining how he would hype up the story when he told people around town. Given the limited interactions, stories were a currency, and almost a social competition. Everyone trying to tell the a tallest tale of their usually hyperbolic weekly endeavors of heroism, and tribulations. But ¡°¡¯Killing a ¡®Writhing Raven Roach!¡¯¡± Was a headline he imagined would be the talk of the town for months, or maybe a legend forever. Or maybe he could sell it to a museum or something, to help pay for some much needed innovations to the farm equipment, that had already become jury rigged representations of their former selves. Vance Struggled to saw even the partially cracked barb off with way more elbow grease than he anticipated putting in, as he had to ratchet his whole body into his sawing motion, to cleave his prize from the lead like carapace of the monster.


    ¡°The Ice! It¡¯s cracking!¡± Yelled Zaith pushing vocal cords slightly beyond their limits resulting in his voice screeching some of his words, as he saw large faults shoot through the rock of ice anchoring the creature to the bottom of the body of water.


    ¡°I¡¯m almost done!¡± Vance yelled back with a suddenly more anxious inflection in his voice. The creature¡¯s villainous face erupted from it¡¯s glacial coffin shattering into several husks of ice, splashing the contaminated water like cannonballs. Now glowing with ache of villainy scathing in it¡¯s double crescent eyes accompanied by a sinister grin of a fanged overlord desperate for vengeance, it glared at Zaith before turning it¡¯s attention to Vance attached to it¡¯s newly disfigured tail. The beast turned it¡¯s regurgitating maw full of dry ice nails toward Vance, firing all four of it¡¯s lamprey like tongues like grappling hooks with two of them connecting on impact, one latching between the plates in his suit¡¯s armor in the torso the other smashing directly through his helmet¡¯s visor slathering blood on the reminder of the jagged glass of his helmet.


    ¡°VANCE!¡± Yelled Zaith in horror not having witnessed so much blood since his mom¡¯s prosthetic malfunctioned. The beast flipped Vance in the air with a whip of it¡¯s tail segment, abducting him from the air into it¡¯s mouth, like an astronaut sucked into the vacuum of space.


    ¡°Damnit, What the fuck am I supposed to do?!¡± he thought as tears began to roll down his cheek. He wanted to cry, but he had to think, he had to do something ¡°but what?!¡± his mind was running a thousand miles a second but his body was paralyzed with fear. What could he do? Would he be next? He stared as the beast slurped his brother up extravagantly guzzling him as if gulping water in a heat wave. ¡°My emergency plasma knife! I might have a chance!¡± An idea sparked in Zaith¡¯s mind. An Emergency knife built into a holster in the side torso of his suit, a super heated elongated box cutter with an approximate one minute use time, that is touted to be able to cut through virtually anything, but could he get close enough to it? ¡°I''ve got to try!¡±  He geared his soul with an aura of fire, the thought of him allowing his brother to die while not doing everything in his power sickened him into righteous fury. ¡°I¡¯ll die trying if that¡¯s what it takes!!¡± He roared to himself aloud before pulling the blade from his suit with an elite level of dexterity he would have previously thought himself too uncoordinated to preform with such fluidity. The blade heated so fast within seconds it was burning with the white hot glow of a flare, with steam rolling off it from oiling the air and the rain itself. He sprinted full speed around the perimeter of the water, plunging his boots into the mud, while ripping them back out with just as much force after each step. ¡°I''ve gotta get behind it!¡± Knowing he would be a second course if he allowed the beast to align it¡¯s face with him. He enclosed on the beast as it was reveling in it¡¯s consumption. Zaith leaped on the wing ridden side of the beast¡¯s back, using two hands to slam the blade into the tops side of the creature¡¯s back above where the believed the stomach would be. He drilled the blade into it¡¯s plates of exoskeleton, possessed with a maddening rage gritting his teeth as he attempted to bore a hole in the metal like substance which was now melting into an iridescent sludge seeping from it¡¯s wound. The beast evoked an accidental harsh screech that it shot up into the trees as it discovered it¡¯s new unexpected pain, it swung it¡¯s head to both sides in futile attempt to remove Zaith from it¡¯s back, firing it¡¯s tongues over him, and reeling them back in with failure. He he gripped his blade like the horn on a saddle, until he began carving into the beast¡¯s side his stance switched to more of a precarious mountain climber, as the monster attempted to shrug him off. An unusual screech began coming from the beast, but this time it was different Zaith noticed, it was more similar to engine he and his brother had heard earlier, only more faint, coming from the be beast, like personal sized turbine on a screamer bike. The sound got louder as the violet light began to crawl from between the seams in the beast¡¯s titanic carapace. Then the engine sound overlapped with the hum of what could only be an industrial bug zapper, a distinct sound he recognized from when he overcharged his pistol. ¡°Can Vance blast his way out with the jagged slice iv¡¯e carved out?¡± hoping the sound was actually his brother and not just the monster¡¯s stomach acid causing his equipment to malfunction. His thoughts splintered with anxiety as he could tell his blade was cooling becoming abruptly more difficult to drag through it¡¯s mammoth armor, which was even seemingly less dense towards the sides and the belly. Just then 3 explosions that would appear simultaneous to anyone not astutely focused on them, blasted the monster¡¯s torso into massive bricks of shrapnel most of wich were about the size of a car door. Zaith could hear some of them impact on the street adjacent to him but couldn¡¯t process what the noise actually was as the beast¡¯s sudden dismemberment had left him face in the gelatinous stew of mud now glazed with an antifreeze syrup. Remarkably the head of the monster along with it¡¯s elongated neck remained almost completely in tact, at first instinctively reacting with a snapping biting gesture while floundering like a fish in the mud, as if not even realizing for a few seconds that it had been detached from it¡¯s body. Until it came to rest and lookedd like it attempted to draw in breath to no effect.


    Vance layed in the mud his helmet flooded with blood and other intestinal fluids. The pain from his gouged out eye lingered but it had become background noise in his adrenaline fueled frantic scurry for survival, not even sure if he would survive the bast from within the beast, which did leave half of the surface of his armor with an uneven more brittle scorched surface, like a ceramic vase.


    Zaith awoke from his aftershock stupor, with a frantic confusion, as if awakening from some incoherent nightmare swinging his arms as if fighting off invisible assailants. The suddenly the world came back to him where he was what he was doing ¡°Brother!¡± He struggled to unshackle his helmet from his suit¡¯s neck piece, which was more difficult for Zaith¡¯s more antiquated ornate suit model, that was now also subdued by globs of mud. He freed his head from his mud clogged coffin of a helmet, casting it carelessly into the muck that immediately engulfed half of it upon impact splattering some on his face in the process. He looked around gasping heavily taking in fresh air, that his suit¡¯s intake ports were to clogged to sufficiently supply, in his more oxygen demanding state of adrenaline. He scanned the area trying to assess what happened during the blast or where it even came from. The air around the pit was even more frozen, having turned into a crystallized mist of flakes he could feel burn his exposed face. Bizarre plumes of clouds that looked more like actual fibrous cotton strands, that appeared too dense to float seemingly defied gravity. They were perhaps some digestive mechanism adapted beast¡¯s freezing breath he quickly assumed, resisting the urge to put deeper thought into it, without knowing if his brother was ok. He scanned for a few moment¡¯s before discovering his brother laying face up depressed into the mud with one of his arms curled up into a stiff position as if a victim of Medusa''s gaze. His brother¡¯s suit in state of disrepair so bad, that he had never seen one so brutally dismantled by anything before, with chunks of it missing and raw flesh exposed where it looked like the armor had shattered apart. ¡°BROTHER!¡± He shouted again mostly to himself, this time out loud, hoping for a response. He propelled him clumsily up from the mud, so hastily that he didn¡¯t even give himself time to evenly balance before he began frantically taking his next toward his brother. He splashed his way into the water now knowing that swimming strait thorough was probably faster than stumbling through the mud. He swam through the pool of sewage that made his bleach white hair into a dirt soaked brown bathed blonde. He stomped out of the water of his brother fighting for traction. ¡°Vance.¡± He said more intimately, now standing over his brother, this time not even anticipating a response as he was overtaken but mesmerizing horror at the amount of blood slathered on the glass of his brother¡¯s helmet.


    ¡°What?¡± Answered Vance with a subtle tone of annoyance in is voice, as if his brother was waking him up early to do chores before church.


    ¡°You¡¯re ¡­ ok?¡± Said Zaith mumbling confusingly, his eyes now pink enough to nearly mach his irises as they almost began welling with tears.


    ¡°Of course I am! What kind of older brother would I be if didn¡¯t keep you safe?¡± Said Vance, as his tone shifted from a tired whisper, to angered sarcasm.


    ¡°Save me?¡± Zaith thought knowing his brother was being a bit hyperbolic, probably not wanting to verbally admit he almost got them both killed. Zaith¡¯s tears now strolled down his face , but they were from joy, relief that his brother would be ok. But if Vance was particularly good at something, it was always solving the problems (that he usually created) for them both.


    ¡°well if you could stop standing there and help me up that would be great!¡± Said Vance knowing his body was in no condition to even exert the effort to pick himself up, but perhaps he could walk , or even limp back home.


    Zaith leaned over down to his brother extending his arm for him to grab on to. While pulling him up he glanced at his brother¡¯s face that he could barely recognize except after being submerged in blood, aside from one of his one of his honey gold eyes, distorted by the navy blue ring around the edge of his iris that sent it¡¯s needle like strands halfway to the center of his pupil in some places that looked more dark green the farther from the edge they were. A hybrid concoction of dark version of his mother¡¯s eyes with the radiant glow of his father¡¯s ferocious bright orange eyes. He hesitated to look at his brother¡¯s wound but his eyes glanced over against his will, the looked like it had erupted from a volcano in his face where his other eye socket was now devoid of an eye. Vance could tell his brother was immediately disturbed by what he saw even if he tried to hide the reaction on his face with all his might.


    Vance now back on his feet he swayed, clumsily as he tried to collect his cognitive and physical stability. ¡°Brother¡­ you¡¯re wounds, are worse than I thought.¡± Said Zaith in a soft shaky tone, almost testing to see if his brother would even hear it or wanted to acknowledge his new disfigurement.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I know you¡¯re too young to remember, but dad always said ¡®Scars are Trophies, proof that you contested you¡¯re destiny in this world and survived.¡¯ Because when I was young seeing mom¡¯s mechanical arm always kinda tripped me out. But I guess the fruit doesn''t fall far from the tree.¡± He said coolly as if in deep reminiscence having felt the cold breath of death chill his bones.


    With his suit aided movement he could still walk. ¡°Guess I got more of a souvenir than I wanted huh?¡± He said in a rhetorical manner as he hobbled over to grab a shattered shard of the beast¡¯s claw. ¡°Let¡¯s get back , it¡¯s gonna be a rough trip for me.¡± said Vance.


    ¡°Ok.¡± Said Zaith still in awe of what had happened to them.

 Recompence

    We made our way back home, But it felt different than when we left, as if inhabited by some ominous spirit intent on evil, or maybe , we¡¯re the ones who have changed? Either way the hike back was way more challenging, for me physically ,yeah , but for both of us spiritually. What would we tell mom? How could we even face her scorn, it was going to be emotionally harrowing. What¡¯s done is done though, this is us now, my face and Zaith¡¯s hand forever branded by the forest as foolish foragers, or brave contenders in the coliseum of trees, two sides of the same coin I guess.


    We halted at the crescent of field surrounding our house, we both stood with no eagerness to approach it. It was now about 5pm and the sun had dropped just low enough below the garrison of clouds to glaze the fields in it¡¯s amber rays. A peculiar sunset that only ground dwellers could appreciate, sculpted by the horizon of clouds rather than earth. And after a few hours you could witness the second traditional sunset. The type of sunsets that were in-ascertainable to even the rich, at least in ¡°Peregrim City Citadel¡± , A sanctuary secluded in it sea of clouds, sequestered for the affluent half of humanity in this area. But what they gained in luxury and security, the lost in the serenity and adversity of nature. A city so seditioned from the natural world, drowned in the forever mist of the clouds near the pinnacle of the spire pines, it was shielded even from sunsets.


    He could see his mom in the distance, Vance caught the first glimpse of her on the porch sitting in her old wooden rocker, even barley visible he could tell it was an unsettling agitated pace while smoking a cigarette with her mechanical arm, a pose he could recognize even beyond the full registration of his eyesight. ¡°Oh yeah! We¡¯re totally screwed¡± Said Vance with a comedic sense of apathy toward on more ordeal for the day.


    ¡°Yeah , I don¡¯t think we could possibly worry her anymore that we will today.¡± Said Zaith hunting for any thread of a silver lining with a dour hesitancy in his voice.


    ¡°Fuck, let¡¯s get this over with.¡± Said Vance, as he lead the march of defeat back to their home. ¡°If we don¡¯t survive, I love you bro¡± Said Vance with a thick sarcasm, that pulled a smile out of Zaith. They gradually grew closer the house wading through the waist deep wheat brush. They could see their mom and her vacant stare back at them grew bigger the closer they got, as if some angry moon was slowly falling toward earth consuming the tranquil vacant sky with it¡¯s presence. For them it felt like the longest walk of their life. ¡°Guess I already lost an eye today, can¡¯t be too much worse than coming home with my first tattoo.¡±  Vance told himself as they made their turbulent approach to the clearing around the house.


    She wasn¡¯t mad this time. They only made it halfway to the porch before Anorlana shot up out of her seat and ran down to see them. In her grease covered jeans and short sleeved t-shirt. He lit cigarette fumbled from her unfocused grasp of her fingertips. She was never clumsy anymore, after losing her arm, if anything she was an off duty ninja bade duelist.


    ¡°You¡¯re alive.¡± She said as her bloodshot silver eyes began running with a river of tears, down her orange sunset torched cheeks. Vance and Zaith both took their helmets off now,Vance dropping his on the ground. Both thinking keeping them on would somehow shield them from their mother¡¯s feelings. She just wept. I couldn¡¯t help it I cried too, we all did. I''ve never seen her so sad, just breakdown like that, I couldn¡¯t handle seeing her like that. We were all just happy to be here. She wanted to be mad, she tries so hard to be strong , but she was so worried, and the relief was just so overwhelming. Vance and Zaith both grabbed their mom with the tightest hug they could give her, all of them gasping for air as tears streamed down their cheeks. ¡°I¡­ I.. ughh I¡¯m sorry!¡± Said Vance struggling not to choke for air as he sobbed, feeling like he had let them both down.


    ¡°Don¡¯t! Ever¡­ leave again!¡± She said barley managing to put words together between gasps for air, In a frantic irate state just releasing her emotions more than fully rationalizing what she meant.


    ¡°I know¡­ I¡¯m sorry, I just get so lost in the thrill of the moment.¡± Said Vance resting his chin on her shoulder with soft sober tone of reflection, as the sunlight poured over every blood dried crevice of his new wounds.


    ¡°I heard the ship flying in the area.. and my heart sank.¡± She said now regaining some semblance of her composure, now tethered to them with an unrelenting grip. ¡°Then I saw you two coming back I was so happy, and then I saw the blood and the fear came right back, I wanted to be angry but I was just happy, you¡¯re both becoming men now, and¡­ It kills me that I can¡¯t keep you safe anymore.¡±


    She said as her mind flooded with memories of them growing up, before she released them and stared into their faces again, first with Zaith , then hesitantly Vance. Tears continued streaming as tried to see them as the adults they were now becoming, but also being overwhelmed when she locked eyes with one of her son her son¡¯s now missing.


    ¡°I love you both. But we¡¯ll talk later.¡± she said as she turned away to just cry, with a hint of agitation. Feeling like she not only failed them , but she failed her husband while he was away. Unknowingly feeling the same as Vance. She stormed her way through the red dirt up the grated metal stairs, past the paint plastered columns on to the weathered wooden boards of the veranda terrace, before entering the house, releasing some of her emotional ammunition stockpile in every stomp firing her legs downward like guns a shooting range


    ¡°Phooooooo¡± Releasing a deep sigh through his whistle shaped mouth. ¡°Is today over yet? please.¡± he said half rhetorically just wanting to break his trance.


    ¡°No still, got to shower and get cleaned up.¡± Said Zaith with his own sigh.


    ¡°Do we have to?!¡± Replied Vance thinking he just wanted to dive int his bed and forget the day already.


    ¡°Yeah. I think so!¡± Said Zaith with a half tired laugh, having considered not bathing as well.


    ¡°I know you¡¯re always the bearer of bad news, but could you try not to enjoy it that much?!¡± Said Vance with smirk squinting his lone eye at his brother.


    ¡°Well one of us has to be the mature one!¡± Said Zaith with a bit of excessive smugness.


    ¡°Yeah.. But without me who would keep us from dying of boredom!¡± Said Vance with a tooth heavy grin trying to match Zaith¡¯s smugness, realizing symbiotic their differences were at times.


    ¡°And someone¡¯s gotta keep us from Dying- dying!¡± emphasized Zaith laughing while rolling his burning ruby eyes against the sunset¡¯s beacon vigil, implying that sometimes his brother was too reckless for his tastes. Vance just shot back his familiar devious grin to his brother, who¡¯s nearly transparent hair looked a bright blond color on one side in the full radiance of the suns berating bellows of the glaring aggregation of scarlet light.


    Time devoured the hours as the sun sank into dusk. Both of the boys took exceedingly long showers, a negligibly effective attempt to cleanse them of the day¡¯s emotional weight. They both sank into their bed as if summoned by an extraterrestrial transient gravity spell that ricocheted into their reality. Vance saw Zaith, his mom his dad as if they were together before he was deployed. He could see from both eyes again. They appeared to be their current age , but Vance felt smaller as if he was a child again, as if he couldn¡¯t interact with them separated by some sophisticated glass wall that made him 100% invisible. It was the past and the present mixed together into what he wanted for the future. But he felt helpless, trying to fill the void of his father¡¯s absence upon them all. ¡°What is this? How?¡± as reality came rushing back to him and he realized he had been visited by a sentient nightmare, that had made it¡¯s way in by mantling up the slopes of the eve into the normally closed window, standing above where he slept, with it¡¯s black branch limb like fingers massaging their way into his flesh, injecting black clouds of doubt and anxiety into his fantasies to admire what it would produce inside of him, Determination? Fear? Or just leave him a rattled husk of contaminated confliction?


    The light-less night sky was bathed in a formaldehyde ocean of black clouds where stars sank into the depths of the drowning waves and were forbidden from sight. The wind of a fresh son to be monsoon was being cooked by humid summer night and the wind battered the rickety wood house like a ship at sea, that sent a noticeable sway through Vance¡¯s room on the third floor. But it was too late the being had finished it¡¯s transfusion of terror into his heart and siphoned some sort of delight from his unrest. It superseded itself with a gust of wind that slammed the shuttered loud enough to wake Vance, as it frantically jump out the window, before reconstituting itself into the camouflage of clouds. Vance awoke tossing and turning as if in revolt of some conspiring agenda, only to realize he was back in his bed. But with one of his eyes missing the blackness seemed more dark than usual, even though his other eye was now adapted and could make out blue lined silhouettes of his furniture, and the howl of the wind that usually put him on edge now made him feel calm. He was at home, he wasn¡¯t in his nightmare, he wasn¡¯t powerless, he could be there for his family even if he let them down sometimes. He sat up in a fog of um-alertness as he meditated in the darkness, feeling a chill as the breeze pulsed at the beads of sweat, some of witch sank into his debris of stubble.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    He collected himself and tossed on some sweat pants before making his decent downstairs towards the refrigerator. He could not go back to sleep after a 5 hour nap, and his body was reminding him that he hadn¡¯t eaten dinner. ¡°I guess I am hungry , but my stomach still feels uneasy, like I¡¯m digesting anxiety from the day instead.¡± he staggered down the stairs letting his feet limply collide with each step levitating down as he leaned more of his weight on the wooden banister awkwardly affixed to the wall in the narrow closest door sized shaft of wooden stairwell, that might as well have been lit by torchlight, with an exposed wire running along the ceiling stringing together a few hanging bulbs that were barley clinging to life, with a only a scarce amount of light left to act as a waypoint through what felt like a mine shaft that was the junction system from the attic to the basement and levels in between. The contested structure was offset by the more well polished lumber, vaulted hallways, and natural skylight channel that ran through the upper two levels of the house, allowing for a small square planter int the second floor hallway, that could possibly have been a misappropriated shaft of a sawmill or laundry chute. He descended with as few squawks from the wooden floorboards as possible, which he hoped were masked by the sound of the wind against the house anyway, but he wanted to take any precautions for avoiding anymore social interactions for the day if he could he could. He made his way to down to the living room, from the gloom flooded tunnel. Curious to see an ambient light coming from the kitchen, and the blue glow and hum of the running television set, he stealthily slid his feet forward one at a time. ¡±Someone¡¯s up right now too? Zaith?¡± he thought assuming, because his mom was a fiercely acclimatized early bird. To his surprise he saw his mother laying sideways on the couch half covered in a blanket lost, in the ambience of some sitcom rerun.


    ¡°Hey.¡± he said faintly, not wanting to startle her but also checking to see if she had fallen asleep with her eyes open.


    ¡°Oh! You¡¯re awake too?¡± she said snapping back to reality, pushing herself up to a sitting position, with her robotic arm sounding like a computer booting up as it lifted her.


    ¡°Yeah I guess, I wanted to sleep longer but my mind was too awake I guess.¡±said Vance.


    ¡°Yeah, I couldn¡¯t quite rest either, I would doze off but not for very long, It was just hard seeing you come back wounded, and there was nothing I could do to help, like you inherited my recklessness somehow, and I was supposed to save you from that but I didn¡¯t¡­¡±Said Anorlana staring at her mechanical as if it was a reopened wound.


    ¡°Yeah, there was nothing you could do, it¡¯s not you¡¯re fault, even if you told me all the right thing¡¯s , I probably wouldn¡¯t have listened. Besides , I think it¡¯s dad¡¯s side of the family that usually get¡¯s me in trouble. It¡¯s like I¡¯m always hunting for something, and when I find something cool, or get what I want, it¡¯s never enough, It¡¯s not legendary.¡± Said Zaith slumping down into a relaxed position next to his mom on the couch.


    ¡°I guess it¡¯s time I should tell you about your father, he hasn''t always been who you know him as, he¡¯s changed a lot since he met me, since we had you two.¡± She said as a nervousness washed over her face and she looked down for a second.


    ¡°Yeah, I get that, everyone changes, I feel like I''ve changed so much in just a couple of years, I used to just be so carefree tanking things for granted, now I feel so responsible, for everything around me.¡± Said Vance almost staring through his mother giving as calculated answer as he could come to about himself.


    ¡°Yes, I know how mature you¡¯ve gotten even if there¡¯s things I disagree with, I respect that, and I¡¯m proud of you, and I know you got to be your own person, but that isn¡¯t necessarily what I mean.¡± She said with a look of fondness and appreciation that gradually descended back into a detached wordiness. ¡°It¡¯s hard to explain, but I see so much of it in you. That fierceness ,a cosmic drive toward destiny, a wildness that I thought would be impossible to tame at one time. It¡¯s like a call that you can¡¯t not answer, a fire idling inside you, waiting to ignite everything around you, for better or worse. I¡¯m just scared for you, It''s like a magnet for chaos, that draws people to you, just like your father. And for a while I accepted death, for us both, I would follow him willingly, wherever fate would have us go together. Like staring into a campfire on dark night, felling safe, but knowing getting too close to it would mean your own destruction.¡± she said softly studying Vance¡¯s face for his reaction, as if she could see him haunted by the same ghost as his father.


    ¡°Yeah¡­, I think I understand exactly what you mean. It¡¯s like a dark procession is summoning me, challenging me, calling me to do it¡¯s bidding. Even if I feel like I¡¯m in control and things usually work out alright, I know it¡¯s a gamble, and sometimes I don¡¯t even know what it at stake if I lose.¡± Vance said tilting his empty eye socket toward his mom to examine as a new trophies of his foolishness.


    ¡°It¡¯s no more your fault than it is mine, I thought, If I raised you different maybe you wouldn¡¯t be pulled into the same type madness as your father, but I think it¡¯s just inevitable, something programmed into you. But it¡¯s always been a madness that iv¡¯e trusted, it¡¯s hard to explain, but in a world of chaos and war that never seems to end, the madness almost becomes a mundane feature of the world, but in a pessimistic sort of way. But his madness was different, genuine, comforting optimistic and clever, I¡¯ve always appreciated it. But I guess those old quotes of ancient wisdom are true, ¡®Sanity in a crazy world can look like madness.¡¯. But you are a problem solver, even you create them for yourself. I believe you¡¯ll do great things.¡± She said gently caressing his cheek just below his new scars.


    ¡°Thanks mom, it¡¯s reassuring to hear that I¡¯m not as crazy as I think sometimes, and maybe that¡¯s why I go along with my crazy ideas sometime, because I trust them and I trust myself to carry them out. But I¡¯m just sorry, you know it¡¯s hard, I know you worry about me. And my biggest fear more than myself Is Zaith, I drag him into my adventures, but yesterday was the first time I really felt scared, for us both, but especially for him. And I don¡¯t know but that somehow pushes me to be a better person, I need someone to protect. That fear, that I let him down, that I might have personally put him at risk gives me an extra level of determination that I can¡¯t access alone.¡± Said Vance trying to pry into his own motivations that he had not often taken the time to consider, being too often pulled by the current of inspiration.


    ¡°Well I wanted to be mad, but I¡¯m just happy both of you came back, mostly in one piece. And I¡¯m actually proud of you how you both challenge yourselves to grow, It¡¯s not easy, but now you know the full cost of your actions.¡± She said nodding her head gesturing towards his scar.


    ¡°Yeah, probably 2 ¡®lucres¡¯, not that I could ever afford that in my lifetime.¡± He said with an ambiguous amount sarcasm, as if he had given himself a new goal to shoot for, giving a more calculated predetermined answer than his mom was expecting.


    ¡°Oh I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll find a way! But, Yeah two years worth of ¡®scripts¡¯ (one months salary) is out of our price range even combined with what we make from the farm. We could barley come up with the down payment on a new eye, especially the realistic ones. Must be nice to have a stockpile of ¡®demerits¡¯(10 years worth of lucres) like those professional socialites in Peregrim. She said with a slight disdain for for their current social climate. ¡°But it look¡¯s like the med unit did good job cauterizing the wound.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, painful! But good not something Id want to go through again , if I can avoid it.¡± He said with a delirious drowsiness in his stare accompanied by a conniving grin, assuming at some point in his life he¡¯d almost certainly end up using it again. ¡°But it¡¯s late I should probably tr to rest and recover. But it was nice taking time to just talk mom, I know we get so caught up in chores and projects we don¡¯t always get a lot of one on on time like this.


    ¡°Goodnight darling, and don¡¯t worry about chores too much tomorrow I¡¯ll see what I can get done without you, just do what you can, and maybe try to take it easy, and maybe cruise out to town and see if the replacement store has any eyes in stock, or if you can order a matching replica.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, aisle do that, It¡¯s been hard keeping myself busy sometimes since I graduated, I haven¡¯t exactly acclimated to my schedule. I¡¯m not sure what I¡¯ll do when I only see Zaith on weekends goes back to the ¡®Formative Improvement Educarium Installation¡¯ The youth programs aren''t that bad, but the last four years were hell for me, but getting through it so I could help Zaith get through it too was the only thing that kept me going some days.That place is a prison for kids to keep the out of mischief, ¡®Mandatory Military Potential Preparation.¡¯ or whatever bullshit slogan they¡¯re selling it as. Can¡¯t say it was all bad, it does teach you the brutality of the world , combat and weapons training, but part of me wonder¡¯s if all that¡¯s necessary, I just wish he didn¡¯t have to go through it, like me. I¡¯m just scared for him, hopefully they place him in the academic department, cause if they place him into the combat curriculum like me, I don¡¯t know if he can handle it. He¡¯s not a fighter like me , he¡¯s thoughtful, he¡¯s smart, and just hope they don¡¯t make him different than who he really is, you know?¡± Said Vance confronting his frustrations with uncertainties in the world, his future.


    ¡°Yeah I know ¡­ I worry about it too, but, I¡¯m the mom, that¡¯s my job! But for now just try to get some rest, no matter what we¡¯ll all get through it together. And, at least you get paid for your time in ¡®Prison¡¯¡±. Said Anorlana trying to put a positive spin on it, even though she had mixed feeling on the whole government sponsored program.


    ¡°Yeah I guess you¡¯re right Half a scrip a month for attendance really does add up, especially when you don¡¯t have time to spend it.They really know how to get people hooked on that steady stream of government income. But I¡¯ll try not to fry my brain overthinking things and just get some good rest.¡± Said Vance before he released a groan as he struggled to pull himself up from the cough he was beginning to sink into, before staggering up the stairs back into the cavernous tunnel leading to his 3<sup>rd</sup> story lair.


    ¡°Damn , I wanted to tell him more about his father, but I guess it just never came up, and it was a long day, but I think it¡¯s the right time to tell him, he¡¯s old enough to know, who his father is, who we were¡­ but another time I¡¯m sure, he has his whole life ahead of him to find out, but the sooner the better.¡± She thought, and stared in reflection the day¡¯s events knowing there was more she would have to get off her chest eventually, that now seemed more immediate importance due to recent circumstances.

 Schism of Intent.

    The sun crept in through the the third story window like a dagger through between plates of armor. The sun was usually bright, the night storm had bore actual clouds free floating clusters free from the assimilated congestion of  the gray veil that usually was. The space between to see the blue sky, seemed like an unreal anomaly. An ancient wonder of the old world. The radiated upon Vance he awoke the unusual warmth on his skin. The likes of which was feeling felt maybe once every two months. He look down upon his hand reflecting the alien angel glow. Normally he would feel overtaken , overjoyed , possessed by a sense rush of inspiration, but now he felt detached staring at his hands, his body, as if it too had betrayed him  , as if it had become shallow shell that his soul somehow piloted. ¡°Who am I supposed to be?¡± the question clawed at him. ¡°A demure farm life?¡± He envisioned  filled with the same sense of angst and dread that filled his mom. Also picturing a world where the war never ends, even in 20 years. ¡°In war, only the war wins, forcing beings to create it.¡± A quote that stuck inside his mind like a thorn, waiting for it¡¯s ancient wisdom to be exhumed, by the right person at the right time, in history. Would he just watch? He wondered a he would perhaps had a a family of his own on the farm, as the cogs of warfare  continued to grind the future into a deserted gray squall possessed only by the hopeless lust of militaristic conflict. An effigy of ash was what came to his mind as he imagined society growing more distant , more scarce and hollow, as if a slight needle move away with the tune of a car¡¯s  radio dial, as if the fate of all humanity could be a nudge away from nothingness. ¡°No can¡¯t just sit by like that.¡± He said to himself, with an almost internal fury. If the world was a knob¡¯s turn away from falling apart he would not let it happen. ¡°But how?¡± He wondered, would he accomplish such an audacious goal. But ¡®The military ¡°was the only answer that came to him but for some reason, it seemed like the wrong answer, a convenient lie the world told itself to sleep at night. so he trusted his gut even though he didn¡¯t have all the pieces to the puzzle. He would give it some time Vance decided, know he was letting a ¡®golden day¡¯ go to waste. He needed to go to the prosthetician in town anyway. He was now more well acquainted with his mother¡¯s frantic desire to stay busy than he¡¯d like, almost like that sound of a running engine that could drown out the gray whispers of anxiety, if only as long as you could keep feeding it a steady supply of gasoline trickling into it. The only question left to decide, would he wear formalized attire?  ¡°Yeah I better¡± he told himself as an unfamiliar swell of wanting to go unnoticed rolled in om him like the gray wall of swirling clouds still dominated the sky that day. His wounds , his scars, his stories, that he was usually so proud of, now just seemed like placebo drugs, he used to adjust his view of the world to an optimistic one. Either way he did not want to stand out. Which ironically was the goal of everyone  in town. Not wearing wearing some of ones most formal clothes was surely a cause to draw concern. A status quo society, awarded itself for overcoming the breath  of extinction upon it¡¯s neck, that they would rather pretend wasn¡¯t distant and still there. ¡°An ostentatious shield from reality.¡± He thought, and one that he had previously been so eager to indulge in. But that wasn¡¯t him anymore He now established. ¡°But was this just a phase? A season in life perhaps? Either way it feels real.¡± He would keep u the facade of who he was, at least for now. Just to be sure he wasn''t jumping to conclusions. So he began to get ready. He was going to wear one of his most opulent outfits. If  not for himself , then for the honor of his family. He was going to wear his burgundy military formal regalia. A style and color that signified one¡¯s familial  heritage to a military background. What used fill him with honor and pride now felt like a disguise, hide his falling admiration at the current state of affairs. He geared up with the overly embellished outfit, that made him look somewhere between a spiffy train conductor, and and opulent emperor, with tones of light brown and burgundy. His pants were a faded  well fitted red denim cargo pants, loitered with excessive amounts of pouches. His upper body had a pressed collared shirt that was more of a light brown than a yellow color, and thick red leather vest that looked like it could belong to an aristocratic cowboy. He put on his faded brown gloves, which looked like they could be used for gardening , blacksmithing, or motorcycle riding, the one piece of his wardrobe he felt still suited him somehow, and to be seen not wearing gloves in public was more a symbol of bad hygiene and social rebellion than financial status. Last but not least was his ¡®Overcoat¡¯ , what was nearly ubiquitously replaced jackets for anything social was typically a collar connecting two pauldrons, hoisting a weather resistant cloak  usually generously above the ground,  depending on the design. Vance¡¯s was a more traditional iconic model more synonymous with military formal attire. The cloak could wrap all the way around and overlap for complete environmental coverage if need be. Vance¡¯s cloak was made of military grade material with thick leather drapes that were anti ballistic for most circumstances, with it¡¯s signature Odescyrian military scarlet color with the localized branches mascot, a white fang badger icon, of the ¡°Bristle Brow Badger¡±. The ensemble was a keepsake when his dad Enlisted with the military , that now miraculously fit Vance almost better than it ever did him. Now fully suited up with his matching yellow brown boots buckled,  he wanted to make his way over to town, preferably without Zaith, if he could avoid it.


    The  house was calm as as he made his way down the coliseum of stairs, dressed in his gladiator attire, even the darkness of the stairwell was dispelled by the ¡°actually yellow for once.¡± sunlight. He heard some rummaging about on the other floors as he passed by them. ¡°Zaith is probably up, so I better be quiet if I want time alone.¡± Vance told himself knowing full well that if his brother wanted to go with him it would be hard to say no, but he needed some space, just to meditate with his thoughts and reflect. He made his way out the front door closely guiding it shut as to not announce his departure.  He jogged over to the side hangar attached to the barn where the family cruiser was resting. ¡°The dust got to it again I guess.¡± He thought, referring to the ¡®Knoxville: Arid Drifter¡¯. A car looking like wheel-less rust corroded version of 58¡¯ Chevy Impala. It was the family commuter vehicle,  But one of his father¡¯s last parting mementos, was teaching him how to operate it, telling Vance to ¡°Take care of it until I get back!¡± which he said almost as a joke at the time, considering the vehicle belonged in a museum or a salvage yard, but to Vance, and his mom, it held a certain nostalgia to it, so they kept it running instead of getting a more reliable one. So he sat in the drivers seat and fired it up. The vehicle raised two feet off the ground. The dashboard interface began booting up like a dial up computer. ¡°Anti gravity thrust regulators: Functionality Normal¡± he read on the display. ¡°Thank God.¡± he told himself out loud knowing he was not in the mood fight with the vehicle to get it functioning today. A current of dust orbited around the vehicle as it levitated in place. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s get going!¡± He said blasting out of the hangar with an explosion of dirt clouds behind him. It was a long trip to town even with modern technology, about 30 minutes with almost strait shot of  what seemed like endless empty dirt road. He could comfortably go 150 miles an hour before the damn thing started drifting or rattling with turbulence, where as a new well maintained model could easily do 300 on a wet day. But sun breaking through the clouds made the landscape more scorched and dry, like the stories of how ancient Nevada used to be. But he admired the novelty of the erupting tsunami of dust behind him in the rear view mirror, that the ¡®Levicar¡¯ could not typically produce on the mud soaked barren. He now approached the city which from an eye squint distance looked like a tangled web of architecture on edge of the tree line struggling not to be absorbed into the dense mass of forest. He turned left into the communal parking lot at the commerce side of town, instead of following the bridge across the Great Gatsby River, opting not follow the empty road as it bore into the forest. He parked in a vast open parking lot swooning with a sidewalk perimeter. His vehicle slowly descended coming to rest gently on the ground, next to one of the towering black street lamps that, that assaulted the darkness of the asphalt at night. They were slender intricately barbed lighthouses belonged to some long fallen nocturnal syndicate of vigilantes, the were themselves conducting their nightfall ritual of brandishing the haunting undead back to hell. These watch towers were littered throughout the parking lot, in their strategic formations for warding off the agnostic contagious hunger of the moonless nights. so one could easily identify their parking location from a distance in the asphalt harbor.


    The town of ¡®Aurora Valley Creek¡¯ was fairly friendly to those commuting it by foot, unless trying to explore every alley of each seldom seen sector. The building variety differed wildly with Vance making his way along the slithering stretch of sidewalk that wove it¡¯s way through the labyrinth of old brick buildings. Colloquially called the ¡®Commerce Colonials¡¯ by those who had business there, or the ¡®Convict Covens¡¯ by the provincial palisades side of the city, that sought not to mingle with the impoverished for anything other than crude novelty. The quaint array of brick buildings converged along the cove of steel barred perimeter of the roaring waterway that divided the town into unequal halves. They served as sedentary sentry of discouragement for their principality of pious neighbors to make the pilgrimage from their peaks to the ¡®sleuth of sewage¡¯ as if the mere act of visiting could result in contagion of symptoms, that would somehow surreptitiously seep the devouring disease of destitution into one¡¯s bloodstream.


    Vance walked along the sidewalk pier next to the river with a continuous metal gate wall with a swirling bar design, adding some whimsy to what felt like a pedestrian enclosure, that contoured the waterway that was about the same height as the street lights, which only gave way at the stone arched bridges where one would cross to the other side. Along the barred metal fence was a series of trees that were plotted with such symmetrical intervals it would make one feel uneasy, as if they were guards on duty to enforce some sort of quality assurance compliant behavior. The trees now rekindled a spark of anxiety back into him, as if once again hostage in the Educarium Installation that was sunken into the woods behind the affluent side of town shackled by a perimeter of trees that that seemed to swallow all the light except for the few mid day hours. ¡°Nature was a distraction¡± A sentiment they reinforced during training exercises, where the hexagonal brick fortress walls we joined by watchtowers suppressed any extra curricular inspiration other than the gray skies as they were corralled into the courtyard for conditioning drills.    ¡°How did I ever survive that place?¡± He wondered, as he was somehow haunted by the conflict of what he thought life should be and what it actually was. ¡°A forbidden sentiment.¡± was what he told himself to keep moving forward , to stop himself from dwelling on it, but now he was free, too free, and it had time to keep crawling back. This town carried a bizarre sense of nostalgia for him, almost like Stockholm syndrome. It felt haunted by trauma for him , but also like home, as if it was no longer cursed by the same dark enchantment that had imprisoned him, as if the city had somehow shape shifted overnight into  a place of benevolence and unity, it felt surreal to really be free, it filled him with an unusual happiness that even he suspected of eventual treason. But he could still appreciate a day away from the farm. It was now firmly mid afternoon, probably almost 2pm. The familiar gray syndicate of clouds once again began conspiring to rule the skies, eliminating all but a few sheckles of narrow drawn rays of sunlight that manged to pilfer their way, through the collusion of water condensation. Glancing upwards to take in the sights aside from his wandering mind, Vance could see the ¡®Chapel of Shared Serendipity¡¯, a name that somehow rang hollow in a climate of eternal war, a place he didn¡¯t hate, just the name. ¡°More like Insidiousipity.¡± thought Vance, a word he made up that came to him , that somehow seem more fitting than the actual title.  It ornate building that stood with more prominence that the actual town hall that sat buried on the far side of the left side of the less affluent part of town tucked by the edge of the woods next to the ¡®Free¡¯ Cemetery for those lacking the budget of a memorial site near the church.


    The chapel itself rested directly upon an a massive aqueduct built over the river, the build itself a symbol of unity for people of all walks of life to commune, and set differences aside for one day of the week, or silently judge each other and share the latest gossip. The building itself was the pinnacle of modernness, with with glossy white enameled exterior,  and two bell towers, that looked more like plants than actual architecture, with long curved spires that looked like they had been indented by a curved cylinder. The rest of the building carried a similar aesthetic throughout, with the exception being the entrance , which was the the facade of a much more ancient brick building, with two imposing massive wooden dungeon doors, all coated with a glossy white layer of paint to match the modern amenities that had been grafted on top of it over the years. And the building did command the attention of any onlookers, it stood in defiance with it¡¯s clean white exterior amidst the contention of dark green spruce trees standing behind it, that almost looked black by contrast, and the continually conjured downpour of gray upon the congregation of concrete.


    Crested with an ornate stained glass window, that hung above the doors like the moon they they could almost never see, depicting a medieval simplification of a mural. Which was a depiction of the seraph Azelinor, during the resurrection of Benedict who was wrongly sentenced to death, but those susceptible enough for the influences of heresy have skepticism that he was truly guilty and was cursed with un-death, and to this day is doomed the residuality of perpetual lingering.


    But he admired the porcelain walkways that reached across like arms grasping on to the nearby traditional brick and stone buildings like some sort of symbiote, connecting the third story levels of the the mall, the city hall , and the game warden dispatch office tower, which sat on the opposite side of the river. The church had made itself the town plaza, the crossover center for city dwelling socialites, no one could stay up to day in the latest rinse cycle of happening events. For the last four years he remembered when he too took refuge among the caustic well of refuse, his weekend routine of conspiracy and gossip that gave him an escape from his weekly ¡°highly Incentivized¡±  institutionalized attendance. Not attending would make almost anyone a social pariah, even the rich usually sent their children, not for the financial offering which most families in the area almost certainly needed, but for the social status and discipline, that affluent families seemed to mutate into ardent obsessions with vague ideological amalgamations for their tenets of superior righteousness that they could lord over laymen barbarian crop keeper.¡±It¡¯s funny the sickness that comfort affords people. Poisoning themselves with their own ego. Thinking they¡¯re somehow more safe than the rest of us when the world withers into chaos.¡± Vance conjectured to himself staring across the river at a house that always seemed to catch his eye, an old white painted victoran home about 3 stories tall, that looked like it had a lighthouse loft attached to it, that was across the street from the town chapel, the house was immaculately maintained that itself looked like it could host it¡¯s own chapter of followers. He thought it was ironic how they ¡°romanticize their status, but still didn¡¯t make to cut to live in Peregrim. Were they any safer than us just on the other side of the river?¡± He asked himself rhetorically already knowing the devastation  that could be so easily set in motion even by natural occurrence.  As he stood, gazing across the glistening current. ¡°This is good, therapeutic to be back here on my own and just reflect.¡± he realized knowing he had been avoiding time to himself , especially here where he could look the ghosts of his past in the face. He now felt like he could relate to the ¡°Defectants¡± as the upstanding citizens called them, or ¡°Ghoul Scorned¡± as they referred to themselves, A guild of hoodlums that had their own establishments in the aqueduct tunnels below, that could be easily identified by their stark contrasting attire with clean aesthetic that even the poorer commerce district tried to maintain. Wearing more distressed clothing, with a heavy emphasis on black, and edgy sometimes excessive adornments and accessories, with unnecessary metal spikes sprouting from anywhere they could. Looking like some sort of black draped wild west posse of vampire hunting cowboys. But the one thing that could clearly identify even the more bland members and the new recruits was the guild patch, usually emblazoned upon their thicket of denim and leather attire, which was a ruby eyed depiction of a ¡°Demidraven¡± which were the black amphibious eagles, that lived sewage water depths that kept the rats at bay by bursting out of the water and dragging them into the water with their serrated barbs of their beak¡¯s jaw. A hazard beyond the raging current that made the need for gate waterway all the more necessary for the safety of any unsupervised youth, or the wandering feeble elderly. Was he wrong all along? He wondered, even sometimes joining in on condescending discussions about them as they came up, he himself classifying them as ¡°Weirdos¡±. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll investigate them later.¡± He thought grounding himself back into the present moment reminding himself He was here on business.  He turned looking across the street to the busier sidewalk on the other side where all the storefronts were, the complete opposite of his side of the street which was mostly where people went if they intended to cross the bridge over the river, or were just leisurely strolling. He looked over at the busiest building that entertained a host of people socializing congesting the generously wide sidewalk outside the ¡°Reedwater Residue Reservoir¡± that was the local tavern, where even heathens and hard workers would mingle with one another. He wanted to avoid it entirely Fearing he might get caught in a conversation with someone knew, in his transient mental state. ¡°Let¡¯s make this a stealth mission.¡± he told himself setting his sights on less busy building two stores down ¡°Nifty Nyc¡¯s :¡¯Good as Newt¡¯ Prosthetic Amenities Emporium¡± A name that Vance always made the store sound more luxurious than the hole in the wall brick and mortar shack that it was. But it was always an interesting place, half pawn shop , half improvised thrift prosthetics for those with ¡°economical limitations¡± as he would say.


    He made his way across with almost a gallop in his step trying to be quick but also not wanting to look frantic and draw attention to himself. The front of the store had big wide walls of glass reinforced with a chain-link fence mesh behind it, sandwiched between layers of brick that formed two half hexagons that curved in in the center where the door was and on the edge of the end of the building. Vance opened the door that had a simple pull grip handle with bells tethered to it to alert Nycallistar when people enter and exit. The aisle shelves were littered with all kinds of vintage antiques and knickknacks, but the high dollar mechanical stuff he kept in a cage in the back that looked like it may have been a renovated pharmacy at one point in time. Nyc was in fact in the cage, and not one of his younger employees today. He was welding something with the torch mounted to where his index finger used to be.  ¡°Hey! Nyc!¡± Vance shouted trying to make sure his voice was loud to reach him over the roar of the torch.


    ¡°Hello!¡± he shouted back , while still focused on his weld. The old praetorian turned around revealing his white snow crusted stubble, his eye patch and welding monocle. ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± he said looking right toward Vance with his monocle still covering his singular eye. ¡°It¡¯s Vance! Lana¡¯s son.¡±


    ¡°Oh been a little while since I''ve seen you in here snooping around, not that I see anything super well anymore, especially after a weld session.¡±  Replied the grizzled codger that looked like he could half polar bear covered in white stubble, or Santa Claus¡¯s less congenial cousin.


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s kinda the reason I¡¯m here too I thought if anyone could fix a prosthetic eye it would be you.¡± Said Vance tilting his head to his newly acquired wound.


    ¡°Shit, Boy something did a number on you eh? Welcome to the club, sorry I didn¡¯t send out any invitations. And, yes , I can fix it and you do have some options but anything close to a new eye is out of both our price ranges, unless I wanted to sacrifice my retirement and work another 20 years. I can¡¯t say I¡¯m super keen on that plan, so I figured I¡¯d just let my eye fizzle out until I can¡¯t work anymore, and just admire everything like a Jackson Pollock painting I suppose.¡±  He replied imparting a stern dose of reality as old watchdogs tend to do.


    ¡°Yeah, I was kinda planning on something less that top of the line, giving my limited budget.¡±


    ¡°See that¡¯s what I like about you, just like your mom, practical and sensible, that woman is one hell of a negotiator. Haggled me down to a vintage bottle of brandy for that arm of hers! Hows it holding up anyway? Not showering sparks hopefully. Much more practical than the old Mil-Grade with a sawed off built into the forearm I¡¯d reckon?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, holding up pretty good from what I can tell, but she¡¯s always good with maintenance, so I wouldn¡¯t know even if something ever did go wrong with it. But, yeah I think her old one still has some weird sentimental value to her, but she never uses it really. I mean a buckshot is never useless to have with the range wraiths out there, even if it¡¯s not practical modern weapon, those can have their drawbacks as well.¡± Said Vance now resting his forearm on the counter rummaging through his memories. Even if he initially was not in the mood to chit chat with people he knew, this felt therapeutic, perhaps a more needed conservation  than he anticipated, just to escape his thoughts. He would always briefly talk to Nyc, but it was always brief, always in a hurry to go about his day and socialize with people his age, but now it felt the opposite.


    ¡°Lost a sibling and an arm to those wretched things, devious mongrels! We weren¡¯t close, but I defiantly felt how it affected my parents back in the day. But some curses are blessings in disguise, and vice versa, I wouldn¡¯t be so adept with prosthetics if hadn¡¯t been using one from a young age. As far old school ballistic weapons go they kind of have certain demographic notoriety to them, as someone who is somehow an inhuman savage. But if it keeps an arm attached it¡¯s dog eat dog as far as I¡¯m concerned. But I¡¯ll tell you a secret, most people wouldn''t guess about me, and maybe it¡¯s the same thing for your mom, but I have some weird fondness for old school fire arms, more than just an artifact collector. It¡¯s like being connected with history actually shooting something that was a staple in dealing death for nearly 400 years, it¡¯s something alright, almost supernatural, and it does make me feel like a savage, or primitive, but maybe I like feeling that way, ancestral or something you know? Said Nyc leaning closer to Vance resting his arm on the same customer service counter of the workshop cage, lowering his usually loud abrasive voice to a now softer more personal tone, even though they were the only two in the shop, as if even then, someone could be eavesdropping on through the thick walls of stone, of confessions about himself he was very selective about.


    ¡°Can¡¯t say I know the feeling, but it is something I¡¯ve wanted to try, In the Educarium they really only trained us on laser weaponry, with nonlethal dummy guns, but they do seem¡­ mythological to me.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see what we can do about getting you some practice with one. But keep it on the low, not the kind of thing the government is super fond of these days, they want every gun with a serial number and tracking chip, and they¡¯d brand you on the forehead if they could get away with it!¡±  Replied the wizard of machinery as his face became more stern and focused, as if a random train of thought had taken him. ¡°Has she.. told you?¡± The old man twisted his face as if trying to stare through Vance or read his mind.


    ¡°Told me¡­?¡± Vance answered as if he barley processed what the man was implying but he correctly assumed ¡°her¡± was his mom.


    ¡°I''ve been in business a long time Vance, and a place like this tends to attract all types of vagrant folk, especially the less than savory characters. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s my business to say, if you don¡¯t already know?¡± He said laying very thick but very vague implications.


    ¡°Um, I¡¯m not sure I follow what you mean?¡±


    ¡°You know who your mom really is kid?¡±


    ¡°Is there something I should know?¡± said Vance now slightly agitated.


    ¡°Yeah¡­, I got something for you, I¡¯ve kept it, as kind of a historical memento.¡± Said the old revenant sleuth, as he hobbled over to and old wooden desk cluttered with towers of papers, his mechanical limbs squeaking with every sparse maneuver. He returned to the counter with a paper that had become a faded yellow color with a portrait that looked like it was made it was made with crude stamp who¡¯s ink had blended with the paper into a brown color from it¡¯s original black. ¡°Know who this is?¡± the old man said while orienting it on the counter so it was facing Vance. He studied the fade blotchy ink contours of a torso shot portrait, of what could be a woman with a very manly physique. It was a wanted bounty poster, dated year 279 AAE, roughly 20 years ago.


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    ¡°Can¡¯t say I recognize the person.¡± Said Vance


    ¡°That¡¯s probably why they never caught her!¡± he said with a wily grin, and is he was privy to some joke Vance was unaware of. ¡°Look closer at the ¡°Her?¡± Vance thought assuming it was a depiction of some very suave man with a braided ponytail. Underneath the image and the massive text saying   ¡°WANTED: Wicked 60 ¡í <sup>12</sup>/<sub>60</sub> Dead or dismembered. 20,000 ?¡ì  (Demerits). For the remains of ¡®Lanadrix , louche of larsony¡¯ , for crimes of commissioning rebellion, hindrance of commerce, calamity evocation, kleptomania, embezzlement , skyjacking, and plundering of government armaments, and general nuisancy.  The name was similar to his mother¡¯s and lingered in his mind like some not quite toxic pollution, until suddenly upon taking the poster in for a moment, the answers came to him. ¡°Damn she does look like some monstrous sibling of my mother.¡± noticing some resemblance in the face features, as if someone had turned her into some preposterously muscular villain.


    ¡°My mom had a sister?¡± Vance answered in an uncertain interrogative tone. The old man¡¯s face flooded with a scowl of annoyance, perhaps hoping his answer would be different.


    ¡°No boy, it is your mom! Or¡­ supposed to be. But lucky for you she did a good job evading by witnesses. Cause they did a piss poor artistic interpretation. And far be It from me to sell out my best customers, I pride my self on discretionary clients, lord knows I would be out of business without people who live one the edge a little, or worse making pennies on the dollar servicing some government contract.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying my mom was an outlaw?¡± Vance¡¯s brow tightened with a tinge of judgemental scrutiny.


    ¡°Well ¡®Outlaw¡¯ is kind of a loaded term. People been around long before laws. I would consider them ¡®Vigilantes of subjective moral interpretations¡¯.¡± Said the old man conjuring his most studiously generous interpenetration of the occupation. ¡°And I¡¯m saying she was damn good at what she did, to get away with it so successfully.¡± Said the the old man releasing his full wide mouth grin that looked more like a railway of steel than a mouth full of teeth with only two of them that were a rotted brown-yellow stump of actual enamel. A sight saved for the few that truly knew the sly skullduggerous side of the elder man. ¡°Yes, ¡®masterfully vagrant¡¯ that woman, too good at things she shouldn¡¯t be.¡± Vance was not eager to believe, but it did all seem to add up. His mom always seemed way more proficient at too many things than the average farm wife.


    ¡°Yeah it makes sense now, like she always so busy like she¡¯s running away from something, or herself, who she used to be. Like a frantic anxiety, she keeps pouring gas into, to stop her from being her old self maybe.¡± Vance paused and just in reflection at the old man.


    ¡°I would take it more as a compliment, an impressive feat. I¡¯m just sorry to be the one to break it to you. I would have assumed you had known already by now. But let¡¯s move on to a more productive conversation. Looks like you¡¯re in need of a new eye since the last time I''ve seen you Eh?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, got taken from me by a Roach Raven.¡±Replied Vance almost faintly snapping back to reality, almost as if a car had come inches hitting him. Were he younger an less mentally mature the information would have shaken him up.


    ¡°Well damn, you¡¯re lucky that¡¯s all you lost then, I haven¡¯t seen on of those since I was your age, I thought they went extinct, back when the game wardens were thriving, and they actually sent out suitble sized clearing parties. Nowdays, you gotta bother them for months just to have them send out a few bastard rookies to be eaten alive out their. They don¡¯t even offer widow pension funds unless you''ve already completed a year of service. It¡¯s a damn racket their running, but I can¡¯t say I blame them, war economics is strict business.¡± He said now giving Vance more information that he could possibly ingest for the day. But he tried to stay tuned in knowing he had a vault of wisdom and experience.


    ¡°I guess everything comes with a price, I wanted a once in a lifetime experience and I guess I got it.¡±


    ¡°So what are you in the market for lad, you looking for something functional, or fashionable? Lord knows neither of us can afford both.¡± Quereied Nyc.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ve never been absolutely opposed to scars, their kind of mementos of adventures, so I guess I¡¯m not looking for anything natural. Could you rig up a synthetic Infrared one, that¡¯s a little more light on the hardware side?¡± Said Vance already having a preconceived notion of what he wanted.


    ¡°¡¯Something light?¡¯ That¡¯s gonna cost quite a bit. You think you can afford something like that?¡± The man swiveled his head to distribute an uncertain look.


    ¡°Yeah I think I got something I could use to make a hefty down payment.¡± Said Vance revealing the thermos like weapon that was loosely hand by a belt strap looped around his shoulder behind his cloak.


    ¡°What¡¯s that you got there boy? Something forbidden I see!¡± Said the old geezer suddenly enchanted with glee. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t happen to be a ¡®Pulse Seeker Channeling Cannon¡¯ Perhaps, would it? Said the nearly blind man still having somehow incredibly keen sixth sense for valuables.


    ¡°Thought you might be interested in something like this, wasn''t hoping to trade it in so soon, but I figured I better before it get¡¯s me into more trouble keeping it.¡±


    ¡°I think we can work out a good deal, I¡¯ll get the exchange papers and a bill of sale. Here look through this catalogue of  retinal veneers for the inferred models, well make it a clean trade, no currency trail if you know what I mean, so just pick what you¡¯ll like.¡± Vance flipped past the first few pages that were all normal look human eye covers, until he got to some of the more bizarre entries.


    ¡°Can¡¯t pick something boring!¡± He noted a few options as he scrubbed through the pages of viable candidates, then finally he crossed the one that evoked his attention. It was an almost black surface, maybe with a touch of blue or purple, with a jagged edged lighting bolt running down the middle with a red slit in the middle of it. The old man scuttled back to the counter with multicolored sheets of impression paper.


    ¡°You know what kind of veneer you want or do you need more time?¡± He asked Vance handing him a pen and the sheets.


    ¡°No , I think I know already. This one seems like my style!¡± Said Vance thrusting his finger on to the page of the magazine, with a speed that would have made a more clumsy person drop their newly acquired pen.


    ¡°Hmm , interesting choice! Can¡¯t say aynone¡¯s ever ordered that one from me before.¡± The man conjectured. ¡°I¡¯ll go put in the work order , you fill out the papers.¡±


    Vance began filling out his basic personal information. That was issued as ¡°payment for services rendered¡± rather that an actual bill of sale, because any anti vehicular weaponry demanded a governmental notification process. Which itself was not a problem, but could draw scrutiny. Or unnecessary political extortion. Where as high profile dealers had no problems buying politicians to peddle their plagues unto the populations. The payment type was non taxable affair , listed as ¡°Service for service.¡± ¡°I Actually don¡¯t think I need to order anything to begin fabrication, we can probably do the procedure today, if you think you¡¯re ready to endure it?¡±


    ¡°Yeah I¡¯m ready. Why wait. Should I wait here? How long until you¡¯re ready?¡± Asked Vance


    ¡°Oh, not very long, just gotta fire up the fabricator, let it run for awhile, and wait for the components to cool. Shouldn¡¯t take longer than 30 minutes! So up to you if you want to get some fresh air before we get you on the table.¡± Said Nyc with an eagerness to see the finished project, he, like Anorlana, carried an anxiousness about him know something he was committed to was unfinished.


    ¡°Fine I¡¯ll go have a cig!¡± Touted Vance magically making one appear from somewhere way too accessible in his monotonous mountain of attire, as if he was some street magician.


    The old man sighed ¡°You Know you shouldn¡¯t be smoking those things at your age, or at all really. But a lot of things that shouldn¡¯t happen always do , so who am I to say what should happen in this world at my age.¡± He said rolling his eye¡¯s knowing scolding the youngster was a waste of his breath, and was he really even any different at that age? It was so long ago he couldn¡¯t even really remember.


    Just then the bells on the door rang. The cozy warmth of the room had been violated by a prolonged ghastly draft of hauntingly cool air, accompanied the cool light from the gray world outside, that now seemed twice as bright blasting it¡¯s way uninvited into the murky works shop.


    A Mountainous being that matched the height of the door held it open. The individual was clad in so much concave indented armor they could pass for machine than man, about 7 ft. tall. They both stood staring at the entrance, encased in a thick block of anxiety. This was no ordinary visit. Both of them could easily recognize the armor, by it¡¯s silhouette enshrined by the ceremonious intrusion of light pouring in around the figure. As if the being had divine will over the light rays themselves. Vance squinted to make sure he was actually seeing what he believed he was. ¡°The S.C.S.C., The Scarab Court Security Corps.¡± Vance thought , recalling to himself what the Acronym¡¯s letters meant. ¡°Couldn¡¯t be good news¡­¡± He told himself. As they were the most inactive group of the military, but possibly one of the most influential, some conspiracy theorists could build a case for.


    The S.C.S.C. was simply a coalition of disposable contracted forces.


    But their iconic appearance warranted something more sinister, perhaps, due to their blind obedience to a select branch of the Federal Consortium government. Commissioned with divine duty rights that were unabridged by government oversight, but also ironically operating as it¡¯s own independent branch of government was the ¡°Disciples of the Chastine Regiment¡±, which was dedicated to the ongoing project of religious sovereignty, and separation of church and state, by any means. Their relationship with other branches was amicable at best, both sides being somewhat cautious not to rub one another too much the wrong way, but on an individual day, not interfering with any militarily jurisdiction, they could pretty much operate with impunity in personal matters. ¡°But what would draw them to a place of commoners, other than to inflict antagony or fleece the old man down?¡± His eyes could vaguely separate some color irregularities , from the amalgamation of shadows in the statuesque figure. ¡°Rust.¡± the word blew into his mind like a refreshing breeze, that somehow made him warmer, an opposing wind to the shiver inducing drought of calmness pouring out of the room. If it came to violence surely the rusty splotches on the armor were some sign of negritude, or hindrance perhaps that could be exploited in an escape attempt. The half cooked ideas came to him in a slurry of mush that couldn¡¯t decide if it wanted to be rain or snow. But still his skin remained clammy, his teeth chattered wired with anxiety and actual coldness.


    ¡°The SCSC was some derelict attempt at malfeasant eugenics program. It was however , cruelly effective at it¡¯s objective, but at what cost? An army of obedience spliced killing machines. All women, if you can call them that anymore, artificiality inseminated reproduction machines, if that¡¯s even still necessary, who knows they might reproduce asexually by now, But nobody I know has lived to see one without their armor, probably putrid abominations masquerading in human form.¡± The door remained propped open by one fully extended arm keeping it from collapsing closed. A machine resembling a small vehicle hovered through the doorway, it¡¯s faint roar could now be heard from the other side of the shop, like a muffled vacuum cleaner. A foreign sight to those not working for a hospital. The vehicle was a detachable life support module to allow traversal for those who had become burdened by life, who could still afford to do so. The scarab court, was scarcely seen, but even more unusual was seeing one of their controllers in person , especially in such unceremonious circumstances, because of their obvious fragility. The door shut as the second scarab guard entered and remained by the door obstructing it¡¯s access with the altitude of their lengthy physique. The shop now felt like it was some dimly lit brawlers arena where, one could wager on rigged matches. The initial guard slowly sauntered down the most central aisle, guiding the survival craft behind her. Perusing  area only for potential threats she showed no indication of interest in the commercial goods. Like a monster dwarfing the skyscrapers in a once serene metropolis, she towered over the aisles that stopped at the bust of her armor, which was that was made of thick sheets of woven metal with a concave hostile architecture that compressed any curves she could possibly have, and evaporated any scent of femininity from the entity¡¯s cold lumbering frame. Which had indeed seen some form of combat, with many signs of duress. Vance noted all the marks on the armor as it approached, some looked like more deliberate thick slices on the helmet and chest area taken out like from a blade of a failed assassination attempt, others looked more like consequential wear and tear from perhaps a jagged series of branches, as well as long abrasion streaks that were most likely from high speed impacts. But very visible below where a color bone should be was the unit¡¯s name engraved into the chassis of metal, ¡°Azalea.¡±. ¡°Ironic.¡± He thought for a being of death to have a flowery name. If he was going to die , he would see his killers face, stare them in the eyes. Not a plan he was hoping have to employ ,but only if it came to that.


    The guard was now face to face with Vance , he stated into the deep void of black glass making up her visor, seeing if vaguely glimpse at any skinless mass of flesh that was the surely the only thing that could move such a frame. It stared back with it¡¯s neck tilted, but nothing could be seen through the glossy tinted shell, even if was perhaps an angle where any visibility might have been possible, any part that wasn¡¯t black, carried the diffuse color ridden contaminated rainbow glare of chemicals on water.


    It was like staring into the eye of some giant cyclops species of fly, waiting for the anxiety to decay my body enough for it to slurp up my remains, or host it¡¯s maggot summoning reproduction ritual. She relapsed back to her statuesque pose as her head turned away from me, and took a few steps to the side, to unobstruct the aisle.


    The sound from earlier was now louder a few notches below the roar of a running AC unit, that maintained the vehicles hovering altitude. It looked somewhere between a casket and recliner chair, made of the same impervious glossy white alloy as the church building. Loaded inside the glass tube chamber, was something that could barley pass for a human anymore. Painted a teal color from the circulating life support gas compound, was what looked like a still living corpse of man.


    A congestion of wires like so needlessly erratic freeway system attached the goblin like creature it¡¯s recliner inside, each cable injecting itself into a different part of the creatures saggy gray skin, as if each one was siphoning any frugal glimmering droplets of human essences that the husk could continue to produce. The anatomy did however look to be a several centuries older-than-Nyc human. Strange gelatinous lesions, where fluid had somehow accumulated, covered the joints of the person¡¯s pruning emaciated physiology, that was overgrown with patches of white hair sprouting in any obscure place they could , like some rampant fungus, on long forgotten fruit in the depths of someone¡¯s fridge. ¡°It stared at me, probably wondering why I was missing one eye at young age, or just why I was in the way, he was probably here for Nyc.¡± It had possessed eyes, like some demon had crawled into a near death human body and manged to keep it running, like two burning candles staring back at you, the whites of it¡¯s eyes were now a drug stained yellow, like they had been exposed to a lifetime of diesel exhaust, the iris was a red polluted brown. The eyes were the only part of the person that seemed to be alive, and the only visible part of it¡¯s face that could be seen through the openings in it¡¯s animal like muzzle containing it¡¯s bulbous elongated head , minus some tufts of hair that was a younger blonde color crashing some waves out of the top like a sea on a Jagged rocky coast. The mask was a black hive hosting almost as many wires as the rest of the body ,making him fully merged with his chair.


    Both Vance and Nyc, knew exactly what this was, a government asset, deemed too valuable to micromanage ¡°Stationary Analogues¡± Everyone knew about them, they were common knowledge, they are the gifted savants who are capable of surviving full synchopathic projection within technology.  Neither Vance or Nyc had seen one before in person, and neither would have wanted to.


    ¡°The official government records classify them as ¡®Intel assets, capable of accumulating data , and condense complex solutions into practical terms for military programs, as well algorithmic diplomacy resolutions.¡¯ If that even meant anything to the average non high ranking official.¡± Vance remember briefly brushing over them in one class session as if it was some sort of commonplace office equipment. Their current task directive which made them invaluable, were ¡°Divinity Studies¡± or in less obfuscating terms, postponing death, preferably, inevitably. And it looked like they were succeeding, but at some great unspeakable cost. As more and more of them began dying off, and potential candidates began to dwindle due to war efforts, or went into hiding to avoid conscription to such an existence. Vance even remembered a particular rumor that now came to mind about a top candidate allegedly sabotaging his own evaluations to avoid being considered for ¡°special programs¡±. It seemed like hogwash to him at the time, like some superstitious rumor that had boiled out of control for one reason or another, but now face to face with this being he knew with full certainty it was truth.


    ¡°What was one doing here, In this little patch of nothing?¡± He did also remember that each of them did have an assigned district to cover. ¡°Was this our specific one? You would think a being as crucial as this one would have and entire battalion with him? Unless ¡­ he was doing something he would prefer to keep discrete.¡±


    ¡°Please Forgive my Incursion into your ¡­ quaint abode. ¡° The deep booming voice that had some trace of humanity to it but was probably not made by a mouth, it was trying to be polite, but gave off the hints of being disgusted by a non sterile environment.  It sounded like burly man shouting up through well, who¡¯s word cadence was just irregular enough to sound artificial. ¡°2<sup>nd</sup> lieutenant William Nycallistar, If I¡¯m not mistaken ? I do believe you severed on the front, back during the infantry incursions, but unfortunately honorably discharged.¡± The voice howled as the being¡¯s eyes pierced toward Nyc.


    ¡°And what business is that of yours, to come dredging through the past in my shop, uninvited?¡± Nyc wanted answers as to why his daily task were being interrupted, and he was not a man with a lot of time left to waste.


    ¡°Ah yes, you¡¯re probably right about that, but technically keeping records IS my business, I just thought it to be a good gesture to recognize such admirable history of service.¡± Voice tried amend it¡¯s inquisition.


    ¡°Well , I¡¯d rather have you admire the value of my time left at my age or recognize the exit!¡± He said almost spewing his words into jumbled grunt gesturing his head toward the door.


    ¡°I hoping you¡¯d be a more hospitable host, especially considering your service. But it would be a shame were anything to happen to such a commendated service man, to pass away before his time, elderly, dimmentia, depression. When they come to clean up the body, I¡¯ll tell them how many times I''ve seen it before, and that if I would have know maybe I could save him. Or if things in your shop were to just ¡­break. ¡± Said the Voice , just as something glass fell from somewhere inside the cage making a loud sound as it crashed on the floor.


    ¡°For a being in such a fragile state he sure does talk a big game with his body guards around.¡± Then Vance turned to look at Nyc to see how he was prepossessing this not so subtle threat. He speecheless his jaw trembling as much as Vance¡¯s was earlier. He released a few Angry bestial grunts, which was not uncommon for old men I guess, but Nyc was one to be heard, and speak his mind, even if the recipient wasn¡¯t always keen to it. ¡°His Arm! Something¡¯s wrong with  it¡­¡± But Vance realized the mans welding torch was slowly moving uncomfortably close to his own face, with every jittery shake. Nyc was old but not so old that he was having muscle tremors, especially not in his prosthetic arm¡­ He grunted clenched his teeth. His whole body was shivering now, he was fighting it with everything he had.


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible! I don¡¯t believe it. Telekinesis.¡± Thought Vance now realizing what Nyc had intermediately known since the glass the glass shattered behind him. Vance contemplated an intervention attempt knowing now, that it would be an absolute futile waste of life, This being did not need It¡¯s bodyguards, and was perhapsstonger than both of them combined. ¡°Damn, this sucks!¡± Thought Vance growing more angry at his helplessness. ¡°But how could I have prepared for anything like this?! Maybe if knew the extent of it¡¯s TK powers¡­¡± thought Vance wishing he was somehow more prepared for the impossible, and the true limitations of such a power was probably a poker card that even the government would hold close to it¡¯s chest.


    ¡°Good now, we see eye to eye. I too have no time for games, but I do enjoy them.¡± Said the monster establishing it¡¯s intentions with small yellow glare flickering in the middle of it¡¯s eyes, like they were wired with some fiber optic cables, that Vance wasn¡¯t capable of seeing earlier from his angle, as they rotated for a split second second to inspect Vance.  Nyc¡¯s arm flew down and slammed on the counter after having control of his own body returned to him. Vance watched as Nyc¡¯s explosive attitude had been defused, into some agreeable soft faced man that he had never seen before.


    ¡°What is it you want from me then?¡± Nyc said in his new gently mumbled dialect.


    ¡°Well they tell me you everything that passes through this town eventually sifts it¡¯s way through you one way or another. And as you may know a renegade colony class vessel was sighted in proximity of the area, normally this is of zero concern to me, and that¡¯s for the Game Warden vagrant types to deal with, far be it from me to get involved with their messes, but this particular band of outlaws have illicitly apprehended some cargo, that they probably think is just some valuable material, is actually a vital resource for our research and development program. So It is my business to track this resource down, before it is damaged or disposed of accidentally. I do not wish to involve myself here longer than I have business to, so if you come across anything that could make my stay short, I will repay the favor.¡± The voice bargained.


    ¡°Can¡¯t say I''ve seen anything irregular pass through here recently, we more irregular than the stuff I¡¯m used to, and I¡¯ve seen a lot. What exactly is it that I should be looking for?¡± Nyc surveyed.


    ¡°Well the size of the material is uncertain, it could be a carryable chunk, or as big as a vehicle, but a crystallized metal material, difficult to come by on earth, this one originated from a geological impact site, but it is easily unmistakable by it¡¯s distinct green color, like green gold.¡± The Voice said with a slight crackle of nervousness that the intimidating tone could not mask, that Vance and Nyc both seemed to pick upon, perhaps disclosing more information than it had wanted to. The sense of fear did seem to put them both a lttle more at ease, that made the being before them seem more human, less of an unconcerned pillaging monster.


    ¡°Sure I guess both of us can keep an eye out, right Vance?¡± Said the old man not missing a chance add a little clever levity to the tension, acknowledging that they were both missing one. ¡°Give me your number and I¡¯ll give you a ring, if I find anything, get you on your way.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, your cooperation  with my Investigation will be appreciated, I truly even have no I¡¯ll will to the people whole stole it that is none of my business, if they¡¯re customers of yours. Getting my research material back is my only business, so I would prefer an expedited discreet process, if the option presents itself. Azalea give him your LAN phone.¡± The Voice commanded. The guard next to him detached a device socketed in her armor, and walked over to the counter placing the phone on the cage counter. (A LAN phone typically being a wired internet capable phone, that was about as reliable as a dial up computers email system, but still it was near instantaneous messaging system for the few, and still more reliable than landlines on occasion.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be shy!¡± said the feminine voice that was deepened by the breathing apparatus of her helmet.


    ¡°It¡¯s a woman?! with a sense of humor.¡± thought Vance taken by surprise, trying to best not grin at how funny he thought it was.


    ¡°Very well, consider my business with you done for now.¡± Said the Analogue as it swiveled the opposite direction hovering in place. It drifted toward the exit, where the second guard was foreclosing the doorway. Vance watched them leave like extraterrestrial visitors from another planet, wondering for a moment if he was even on earth still.


    ¡°Well, that was some shit that neither of us was bargaining for, Let¡¯s get that eye implanted for you, and then I¡¯m taking the rest of day off!¡± said Nyc still tense from the exchange at his age.


    ¡°Yeah ill just take it easy over here and chill out until were ready.¡± said Vance turning toward the couch lodged between the far wall and the cage counter.


    ¡°Oh yeah! You want this trash?¡± Said Nyc picking up the LAN phone waving it at Vance.


    ¡°Ummmm, yeah I guess.¡± Vance curiously agreed with some hesitancy.


    ¡°Because I already have one, and no way in hell am I calling that drooling excuse for a monster back, in my lifetime.¡±


    Vance loafed on the couch for a good 30 minutes, before all the parts were ready. Nyc lead him back around the counter through a door letting him in the cage, where a low to the ground slab with worn out cushions on it had been covered with fresh  plastic sheet, like a coffee table for surgeries.  Above the table attached by a tremendous cylinder module were a swarm of several multi faceted elbow hinge arms. Basically a giant spider mechanic attached to ceiling, for a completely automated mechanical and surgical procedures, that Nyc himself couldn¡¯t even perform if he was in his prime.

 Moon Blood Transfusion.

    Aboard the Mordant Despair ... Among the hisses and bewitching cries of zombie machine parts echoing through the enclosed hollow sanctuary of serialized serpents, footsteps clanged against the grated metal of the walkway that seemed to go on forever. Lodged in some claustrophobic intestines of some titanic machination of parts, hanging like a shelf above the profusely red lit sea of machinery, with depths unknown even to those repelling down to repair them. One faulty piece of equipment could condemn men to hopefully quick death of becoming a pulpy juice by cascading between the grinding teeth of gears, or worse, a prolonged death lost in the chasm of metal, waiting for yourself to starve, or decompose from infected mutilations one would almost certainly ascertain plummeting on the way down to the infuriating man-fueled labyrinth cacophony of pipes going everywhere and nowhere. This was a hive city to vast mobs of mavericks, criminals, and counterfeit citizens.


    Keeping the lagoon mires ready drop their payload of boiling black magnetic adhesive ¡°despair¡± was a full-time job when the ship was functioning somewhat properly, and just suffering from its age. But today was a shit day to be an indentured crew member or a captured compliant.


    The Bridge City: Draden Hurst


    A tranquil old Americanized suburb, free from the disturbances of the sweaty frenzy of the of the of water-cooling chamber marketplace, where the commerce clusters around the boiling river. The bridge city however is placid almost, desolate to it''s own detriment, rescued only by windless strolls in the park, or socialite brunches between cliques of the pirate governing oligarchs. But the facade of serenity was a thin veil, beautiful, but unnatural. The streets, the walkways, the buildings, the streetlights, and even the two-story family homes evenly spaced around the cul-de-sacs, everything but some trees kept alive by a garish amount of incandescent light were made of a polished twisted dark steel, perhaps entirely by telekinesis. A reminder that even the affluent among pirate lordship did not have access to true paradise, just a synthesized placebo.


    But there was one place, one could authentically collect themselves, away from the burdens of fugitive authoritarianism delegations, in what seemed to be the juvenile affairs of the rest of the ship¡¯s ¡°much ado about nothing.¡± as he called them. To the select few ¡®worthye¡¯ who could access them, were the observation spheres, that could also be used as deprivation chambers to truly commune with the cosmos, or to some, ¡°escape the drooling processions of high propriety thralls siphoning life from each other that some sought after or even took pride in.¡±.


    The tall bathing man laying with arms stretching wide, floated just below the surface of the denser water like fluid. His body was muscular and vascular, from nearly non mortal hedonistic abstinenity. His light, long blonde hair had darkened into a dense gold mass fully saturated by fluid. He was surrounded by the tranquil blue fog of a morning day, flying somewhere overlooking a forest of green trees that seemed too ideal to be anywhere near here. The full complexity of his features could be seen in the nearly white, blue light of the 180¡ã current source setting of the spherical room. His face was a soothing and inviting and somewhat sullen. The person who you looked like you could instantly trust to confide in. He was beautiful, even more so than most women of the age, which he could be easily mistaken for, if he wasn''t always nude. His eyes were an unnatural mutation, unusual even for those who had the same ocular disease. ¡°Herodragia Permutations¡± had converted his pupils into two supermassive black holes, he could use to swoon anyone into joining his doom occult and seduce into surrendering their lives to his mission. His Irises were thin stretched bands of jagged gold burned coral, that his most feverish disciples claim were an inherited boon from the moon god¡¯s themselves, or perhaps a consolation prize of consummatory communion with one, if he wasn¡¯t an outright incarnation. The snow color of normal persons sclera, for him was glacial blue, zero Celcius color with darker blue veins that made it look like cracks in actual ice, due to the compound condition of sclerial sclerosis that some people contracted from the peculiar rain, to which a cure was never in sight.


    The simulation stops. The entire room becomes a flooded vacant abyss of white light. A woman enters through the once seamless arched doorway slowly stepping forward with her bare feet as a retractable platform slowly extended before her. Her glossy her deep brown skin tone over her sturdy, but curvy frame reflected some essence of her ancient African bloodline, which for the geographic area was a fleeting commodity, and to the world in general, having a population of predominantly golden brown ambiguous ethnicity skin tones. She stood naked on the platform above the half fluid filled sphere where the bathing man continued to stare at the ceiling as if still meditating.


    ¡°Yes?¡± He asked in a deep whisper that would not have been audible from such a distance were it in any other room without pristine acoustics.


    ¡°Master Gyze Waque, please forgive my interruption of your solidarity rituals, I am aware that you are a man of highly dedicated schedules.¡±


    ¡°Please, no apologies are necessary, we are of one blood, one family my beautiful sister.¡± He said in deep but soft wispy voice, as he rolled over in the water to face her, lying on his side at an unusual angle with his face still half submerged, with one of his shoulders being the highest part of his body exposed from the salve of water.


    ¡°It is unfortunately, most urgent news my lord. The ship has crashed, and you are demanded at the bridge my lord.¡±


    ¡°Dammit! How?!¡± He groaned with an intense depth of sorrow in his voice as if someone he knew had been stricken down amidst a battlefield.


    ¡°A pair of hostile Writhing Roach Ravens impacted the hull to critical effect; we didn¡¯t pick them up in time to begin overcharging the plasma shields.¡±


    ¡°Uggggh always more to deal with¡±. He said lifting himself out of the water doing a slow backflip floating in the center of the room as the excess fluid poured off of him. He rotated himself facing the woman. ¡°Citrene? Right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Citrene, my love.¡± She answered back before lifting her head from its downward nod, finally locking eyes together. Her eyes were contaminated with the same engorged pupils, surrounded by less uniform arrangement of the same burned gold coral strands of iris, like two volcanoes erupting with ink. Of which one eye contained broken blotches like an archipelago that turned into a dense lunar yellow mountain range, with her other eye carrying much thinner, darkened, almost orange strands that looked more like an amateur calligraphers attempt at making two crescent moons, one slightly smaller, with its opening nested into the other.


    ¡°Please, come to me.¡± He held out his palm inviting her towards him.


    Her eyes remained attached to his, not even glancing down to her feet as she walked towards him. With each step she took in the air, he carried her closer to him, as if she was ascending some unseeable staircase. ¡°Please your name again, it¡¯s so much more beautiful when you say it.¡± Now face to face with each other, with perhaps a narrow body sized space between them. As they both stared longingly into one another¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°It¡¯s sister Citrene, Genevieve, taken from my grandmother on mom¡¯s side.¡± She relied, trying to give him the answer she thought he sought after.


    ¡°Yeah, you can tell how sweet they are, your family. To give you such a soothing name, that still really doesn''t do your beauty justice. Your true beauty, that genuine heart, that lights me like only the sun can do to the moon in the vacuum of space.¡± He said as he drew himself slightly closer to her, with his lips inches from her face. ¡°What serendipity have I earned, that has brought you to me? That I might be lucky enough to bear your presence upon me? in this prison of existence without you.¡±


    Her dark toned skin could still carry the bright red blush of color flooding her strong cheeks, down to her narrow chin, making her face glow half as bright as her glossy, highly pronounced sunset pink lips. Her heart raced faster than it had in any combat training exercise she had overcome before, her stomach twisted with anxiety as if a crumb of food could cause an avalanche of nausea. She tried to say something back, but she just gasped for air.


    ¡°Please, take me with you! I¡­ can¡¯t handle it here without you anymore. I want to be one with you. Finally at peace.¡± Said Citrene, once she finally managed to speak, everything came all flooding out at once, with her lower eyelids trying turning to dams against the growing vault of tears. Staring into him as if seeing a home, she had not visited in so long, that she thought was the memory of a dead place she could no longer see again, rather than the person he was before her.


    Stolen story; please report.


    Gyze leaned in toward her, his lips faintly brushing against hers tempted by a kiss before he pulled himself back as if repulsed by a magnetic force.


    ¡°No! I Can¡¯t Please! Don¡¯t make me! I can¡¯t say ¡®No¡¯ to you.¡± He said before turning his head to the side, now suffering from the same breathing ailment as her. The blue part of his eyes had turned a vivid magenta color as more tears than were in his eyes, than hers, began streaming down his cheek all the way to the bottom of his jaw. His tear dams were way weaker and more fragile than Her¡¯s, unable to stop the river from forming his face. He clenched his eyes shut to avoid even the peripheral chance of eye contact.


    ¡°If you love me, you¡¯ll do it!¡± She said, her voice screeching like bad brakes on a car as she tried to shout through her own crying tear ridden gasps for air. And he did, love her. Her eyes bearing down on with the same capitulation inducing ecliptic moon glow as his, as she wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him closer to her. She ran one of her hands up his neck, across his face scooping up some tears with her thumb, before forcibly aligning his face with hers once again. ¡°Do It!¡± she shouted, louder, closer, and more clearly, as her tears finally released themselves across her face like shooting stars.


    ¡°No! Never¡±. he roared back wrought with a badly improvised impersonation anger; they both knew was fake. If he would not do it, she would. Before he had a chance to make his mouth say anything else, she pulled herself up to him and covered his mouth with hers, both of them almost choking, as the seal between their mouths was broken just briefly enough for them to catch a faint sustaining breath of air. His clenched eyes softened and they embraced each-others mouths, until they slowed and pulled back to just their lips.


    He was now leaning into her as her body grew heavier. Her eyes opened revealing them to be white vacant screens, completely devoid of vitality, where even static from an old rustic monitor would have been more a pleasing sight. She slipped through his emotionally weakened grip as she plunged into the water below. He airless corpse no longer able to float, sunk to the bottom. He took a few deep breaths and stared vacantly, as he tried to compose himself floating alone in the middle of the room. A dire side of effect of being able to see into each other''s souls and having the unfortunate power of being able to give someone what they want, even if that is an indefinite escape.


    ¡°Another one I¡¯ve given in to, the sweet release to those who seek it. Or do I bring the darker side of people to the surface, their most guilty desires? They say ¡®He hears me when my feet get weary.¡¯ But why must I be their middleman? What if I too grow weary of being their middleman, their conduit of self-destruction? Who shall save me from myself?¡± Could he be close to anyone truly? He wondered.  ¡°Was this actually what they felt, or had he simply apprehended them in their darkest moments of thought?  Regardless, a cursed power to be certain. Not just to see into someone¡¯s mind, but their emotions attached to it, like some pungent musk irradiating from people, but it wasn¡¯t always sour, sometimes it was, nice refreshing clean inviting him in, and that was the problem. The ¡®good ones¡¯ was were always harboring the darkness of those around them and a little of their own perhaps.¡± He thought scrutinizing his own powers. Perhaps they were defective, had he been such a flimsy detective this whole time? But he deeply wanted one, just one to be pure, an inviting soul not cursed by darkness if such a thing could exist, he hadn¡¯t seen one, but some superstitious faith compelled him to believe that it could exist. Something unlike a child¡¯s soul that was scentless, as if time aging and experience somehow molded someone¡¯s soul into what it was. Peculiarly even young adults sometimes barley burned with any scent of the world, as if they only had brief abrasions with the world, but not enough to deeply mold them yet. ¡®Dim souls¡¯ he called them, made him feel more comfortable, no deep vault into someone¡¯s mind to explore, just a storage closet. He tried to vet his servants as much a possible, but keeping his circle small was a laborious task, and occasionally someone new wandered in. Someone, this time, who shared his vision curse, and the ability to breathe in the life of someone else and add it, like a drop in the bucket, to one¡¯s own vitality. But with this ritual came not just years but strength, making you multitudes stronger than standard men. Sometimes strong enough to deflect ballistic projectiles, which were never a problem when enhanced regeneration seemed to spit them back out like a splinter in in a time-lapse video. But absorbing another of his kin gave him more unnecessary power, compiling human energy like he was some sort of inhuman battery. By his count, with his inhalation of Citrene¡¯s powers which he approximated to be about 33 souls, he was well over 1,000. A rough number, he himself didn¡¯t even wish to count, but that he could always feel growing over time. But deep at his core he did feel average, an otherwise mundane person. He had not renounced himself as a mortal, maybe not human anymore, but some sort of half human mortal. But if there was a destiny in the world, he would find it, or let it find him whatever happened first. But he detested the brutality force, he found his own power grotesque, like some bestial force he refused to call upon even in dire circumstances, he found it more alluring, and possibly the only way to find the real truth, was slow nurtured observation. He had time that few others would ever possess, to wait and see how things play out. The ecosystems of power like raging seas, but until then the true power of ¡°Ring Watchers¡± was a strictly enforced oath of secrecy amongst each other. Though he had never met another who he thought powerful enough to silence him, should he want to divulge the growing mass secrets he had funneled into him like a sewer grate. ¡°But for now, a pirate¡¯s life will suffice.¡± He sometimes hated the dubious weight of his mind, his powers, envious of the naive mundane lives of those around him. ¡°Survivor¡¯s guilt perhaps.¡± He assumed, not wanting to linger in his mind anymore today. He would attend to his duties. After all they expected him to be captain, so he gave them what they wanted.  Before he departed, he lifted up funnel of water that wrapped itself around giving him the appearance of having a more hulking physique surrounding his lengthier frame. He could float even fly, but it was resource demanding tapping into his pool stored life energy.


    So he preferred to move around through the means of his fluid shell. Outside of the sphere small dingy locker room, with a settings control panel. further outside was the long, wide, low ceiling maintenance tunnel that with vents sizzling with fumes of steam turning the whole dimly red lit walkway into a slimy, smog filled sauna. Gyze shrank his water body down to height closer to his own to avoid contact with the filth saturated ceiling. He moved down several hallways of similar features before coming to a seemingly niche vacant dead-end hallway with a door-less box room that looked like it could have been an intended space for a maintenance room that never was. Gyze approached this room closely scrying behind him to make sure he was not followed, but he was sure he would have heard some echoes of if someone had accidentally wandered over. Two whip like tentacle spouted from the shoulders of his liquid shell, quickly detaching a vented grate in the ceiling of the box room. With one big flush Gyze swam up into the vent as if it sucked him up through a straw. Another water like tentacle shot out of the back of the now amorphous blob of water and whipped itself back down to the grate laying on the floor, snapping it back into place like a frog tongue placing a finely sniped shot on a fly.  The vent, that perhaps continued in some way to a billowing exhaust in the top of the ship, eventually spewed him out through a side panel relief built into the  bottom of wall. He was now in a what would have been a nearly in accessible storage chamber for some endlessly churning machine to toil away in, had been converted to a quaint and somewhat cozy dorm room. A hideout where he could only be bothered if he deemed it necessary. A hideout just for himself, where he had even coveted a auxiliary adjacent closet room into a fully functional bathroom.


    Because Solitude and prominence do not often go hand in hand, to be a sought-after figure, especially aboard this absurd quarreling mine of clustered humanity. Normally to be anyone of notoriety meant sacrificing some significant portion of one¡¯s precious solitude. His most fleeting asset. Unless however one were to be extraordinarily crafty and inventive. This was his nook in the abyss one of the few places where he could truly be at absolute tranquility, even more so than the actual deprivation chamber at times. Especially opposed to the hogwash and brine pools of the public showering chambers of the distraught vulturous impoverished class. This room was where he preferred to sleep over his overly modernist chateau in the bridge city, which was more reminiscent of a futuristic Japanese style dojo with a square moat around the uniform courtyard. He found some weird novelty in the quirks of a subdued antiquated lifestyle. And he did enjoy sleeping, it made him feel human. even if he knew he could go days or months without sleep without much weariness, going without sleep did seem to noticeably tap into his supernatural vault of inhumane powers, that sent a peculiar clammy sweat on the back of his neck the longer it went on.


    Now in his isolated refuge, he floated himself to standing position with push from his mass of water, before conjuring it into a sphere, reverting to his standard human interface form.  He hovered the mass of water, the size of a medicine ball, over though a ring with odd jagged sized spears all aligned toward the center, that look like steel branches of a tree.


    The dish shaped device sat upon the glass plane, shin high, coffee table in the middle of the room aligned with his bed. The sphere of fluid mingled the device until it locked into place without being under his influence.  The object maintained the spherical shape of the water by continuously pulsing waves around its surface by some invisible field, while also sending strands of electricity whipping from side to side at random avoid the sphere of illumination in the middle, turning it into an ever-fascinating light fixture somewhere between a plasma ball and the fluidity of a lava lamp.


    But unfortunately, he was here for a short visit, he was here from one of his more guarded relics, his true north compass that only a person of his type of being could have engineered, not something he wished to be tampered with or understood by even smart ordinary men, his ¡°Oculus of Lucid Fidelity¡±. A device that seemed too alive to be to simply hardware, like how a human would perceive an android imposter. But was simply hardware technically. What made it special was it¡¯s peculiar telekinetic interface synchronization of which few were capable, that allowed it to operate as if attached by an actual nervous system, and ¡°it¡± referring to a massive eye holstered in the shoulder socket of the mantle that was big enough for Gyze to wear over his water form, and his only article of clothing.

 The Double Eged Sword

    Gyze was one of the few ¡°Old captains left, who still knew how to get things back up to speed in a hurry. At the unfortunate behest of his crew Gyze was needed to finalize judgement at the helm of the ship ¡°the Beacon Crest¡±, where a wide dome shaped room was the hub of activity, somewhere between a live newsroom and a frenzied stock market floor. Computerized seats that looked like they belonged to some racing arcade game indented themselves into the wall each with a corresponding operator a buzzing hive of nerds who looked to clean cut to be authentic pirates, were essentially honorary ones. Amid the center of the room were some very sturdy looking display table, each with its own purpose for more strategic task for commanding delegates. One of such was the localized geographic display map where one could see a wire frame grid of the terrain usually below them, that now showed an indent created by a blue hologram representing the ship.


    ¡°Ah master Gyze! I¡¯m glad you could make arrangement to keep the appointments I¡¯ve made for you.¡± Said a man with feathered snare of gray thorns for hair. He wore a one-piece burgundy trench coat, with the sharp shoulders of a military suit jacket, made of some dense material that seemed wrinkle proof. A wide perfect circle shape collar made a crater where his neck started. He looked his outfit made him look as if he could work in the medical, military, sanitation field simultaneously, successfully, with an enthusiasm for evangelism on the side. This was the cunning and ruthless ¡°Acting Captain¡± Greis Keiz who loved being captain a little more than anyone truly should. His silver thorned stubble seemed to crawl down seamlessly from the eruption of waves on his head down to his strong commanding face, even if he wasn¡¯t the right person for the job, he looked like he could be. His square shaped head and jaw made combined with his small round glasses dug in beneath his rigid looking white eyebrows made him look like so eager eyed snow leopard ready for an opportunity. The man looked inexplicably old and young at the same time , somewhere between 30 and 50, wrinkles perhaps camouflaged by the dense bristles of his hedgehog like hair forest. Two greasy old keys, that looked like they fit into some monstrosity of a tractor hung from his ear, earnings that looked like some bizarre soundless wind chimes. Nobody knew if ¡°Greis Keiz¡± was his true name or a nickname from his attire, but he would tell under no spell, who¡¯s peculiar ego made him immune to the captivation powers of Gyze and his kin.


    ¡°Please omit your formalities. What has happened to my ship?¡± Gyze


    ¡°Uh you¡¯re never any fun you know that, so damn moody all the time. But were obliviously in some shit if we need you to formalize ou plan of action. We got caught up by some Writhing Roach Ravens before, basted things dug some pretty good holes in the ship. You want the good news or the bad first? ¡± Greis


    ¡°Give me the bad.¡±


    ¡°Well, we¡¯ll be grounded here for at least a week, and if that wasn¡¯t bad enough the feds will probably come snooping around for that moon rock you ¡®had to have¡¯. On top of that we¡¯re in the middle of this damn jungle, the very same jungle that took us out of the sky in the first place. Getting the raw materials here, without drawing attention will be a challenge. Good news is it¡¯s mostly engine and hull damage, simple repairs just time consuming and if nobodies found us yet they probably didn¡¯t here us crash out here. But that¡¯s the gist of it.¡±


    ¡°Good take care of it. I¡¯m going to explore around us, see if there is anything interesting around here.¡± Said Gyze with his aquatic body walking away from Greis.


    ¡°I always hate when things ¡®Interest¡¯ you. Always more damn work for me.¡±


    He shouted a loud enough for him to be heard, as Gyze left as quickly as he arrived. ¡°Wilkes, Geoffrey!¡± Greis Roared


    ¡°Sir?¡± Geoffrey stood up from his computer seat with his headset half on over one ear.


    ¡°You¡¯re going on a field trip!¡± Ordered Greis.


    ¡°Me sir?¡± Asked the fresh-faced young man of African European lineage with two fiercely focus orange painted hazel eyes, with a slightly confused look on his face. ¡°You know I¡¯m not very combat efficient. My specialty is in intelligence and communications.¡±


    ¡°Exactly, and that¡¯s why I¡¯m sending you. Consider this a training exercise. Trust me, you wont be needing any combat experience whatsoever. Your job is to keep an eye on our dear sweet Captain. Don¡¯t let him do anything I wouldn¡¯t do, savvy?¡±


    ¡°I think I copy, but I don¡¯t think have suit for the weather out there, maybe you should send someone else?¡± Inquired Geoffrey in his formal black military officer pressed uniform with a white seven-pointed star logo containing a skull insignia on the shoulder sleeve.


    ¡°No, no trust is the only asset I need on this mission and you¡¯re the man for the job. Go get ready take the subway the back hatch hangar I¡¯ll have them rig you up with everything you need.¡±


    Geoffrey was man who trusted no one but himself, a man who made a name for himself aboard the ship in 3 short years after being recruited at 18. His parents perished in the ¡°Texas Exodus Massacre¡± almost a decade ago, when Texas and the Edge of New Mexico became the epicenter of combat between 3 nations, turning it into the Disease Sea, surrounded by the Corpse Compost Containment perimeter. A majority of New Mexico and half of Arizona became the Uninhabitable Dirge of Desolation, turning most of the barren land into Burning Blood Sand desserts where no are suspected to live among the raging red sandstorms. Until any advance was punished by the crushing obliteration of Odesscyrah Federal Consortium¡¯s titan suits: Deth Mettle, Zanzibear, and Guiltless Goblin. By blasting ¡°the 50 clawed craft¡± called the Hiscariot Terraform Terror from the sky, and by finally bludgeoning the crab clawed humanoid boxing titan, The Fissure Ripper, into crumpled pile of scrap. Finally ending the Unimpeded March into Odesscyrian territory. But the war could have been stopped way before it got to that point, in Geoffrey¡¯s perspective. He once did consider himself a true Odesscyrian, but they couldn''t be trusted to end the war, much less win, so he would find his own way, with or without the government, whatever path that was. He was very calm, almost timid to the untrained eye, but Greis could see it in him buried so deep even without the powers of Gyze. He burned with restlessness, a subdued hunger for battle, for not just justice, if such a thing could even be had, but vengeance, and rebellion. But at just 18 he needed experience, a challenge to crack him loose from his cocoon.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    The deceitfully fresh faced black suited young man crawled down to the pits of the subway terminal after making his descent down from one of the redistricted access ¡°high office elevators¡±. The vast contrast to the sky terminal of which he was accustomed to was immediately apparent. The red maintenance lights painted the alien collage of industrial infrastructure that glued the platform together. Gangs of predominantly men clamored around the wide platform of the railway gutter. The wide arching roof connected by brick pillars, was charlatan''s attempt to imitate a traditional old British style train station, to limited success. What would normally be a skylight, was some cistern of steam bathing a cacophony of pipes, slowly engrossing anything above with an infinitely accumulating lacquer of grease, perhaps thicker than the pipes that also made its way down to some of the bricks. The mob pirate citizens, sat in tight clusters like some kind of heard of animals, waiting for their chance to fight for priority positions aboard the incoming vessel. The howling frenzy of their daily dues went mostly unbothered by his presence, with the occasional side eye or spiteful leer latching on to him. Their yellow crusted zombie fangs showed their lack of interest in anything involving dentistry, unless considering a specialist as a cannibalistic food source. Many were shirtless, including the women, covered in an adhesive layer of sweat, slathered in streaks of shit perhaps from brushing up against a grease ridden wall. Some were full time tenants of the platform with tents, while others, more elaborate construction attached to the walls, where sexual moans could currently be heard. Others were lying about as if lifeless destitutes, while parts of the heard snarled as some of it¡¯s members sat crouched down into an ape like posture. But some were just rugged folks looking to get through their workday maintaining the ship. But the one thing that drew people to the ship was it was fair, fairer perhaps than many of the other national government hierarchy. ¡°You participate, you earn your keep¡±. At least that¡¯s how Geoffrey saw it, and could a life of crime be worse than a world where your family and home are destroyed by war overnight? He didn¡¯t think so. There were of course some policing agents aboard the Mordant Despair, With their own headquarters lodged tightly between the mutant arrangement of buildings mirroring a more unhinged architectural version of New York City, with some building growing out of walls connecting other traditional upright buildings rising above the metal sidewalks separated by searing sewage rivers, headed to the water-cooling chambers. Some building still rose above those one anchored to the ceiling with gratuitous amounts of welding, and a few even connected to both the ceiling and the floor. This was the ¡®residential¡¯ central cargo hanger the capitol city aboard the ship Sequestorm City, where many lived their lives and made a living, if they weren¡¯t off ship ¡°sorcers¡±. This hot damp sauna like swamp of metropolis seem never sleep, with no signals for any kind of circadian rhythm that could possibly breach the hull. Damp enough to have fully flourishing fungus gardens on the rooftops ,as well as many other unwelcome place they had invaded, and other synthetic light fed crops.


    The viscous humidity caused the feebler members of society to invest into elephant faced breathing mask just to traverse the open air, but approximately every 48 hours it would rain for about 12, as if the whole was some elaborately mechanical unbelievably expensive watch, with this city as it¡¯s rain making dial.


    Geoffrey stared out of the window of the railway system that hung above the city as he passed through it he soul see neon signs sizzling through Swampy fog of the glowing red city, though he could only make out vague impressions of things through wall of haze. He could live here. He thought, if he lost himself entirely, and gave up on his adamant drive to make a difference in the world to burn his name into a chapter of history, like attempting calligraphy with a lit cigarette, but that was not who he was even though he at time romanticized becoming a derelict vagrant, free from himself.


    He enjoyed the newfound vacancy aboard the shuttle, the sweat fueled huddle somewhat alleviated with each passing stop, allowing him a clean view of the vista from the back of the train, the furthest point away from any of the boarding doors. But the stagnant smell of feral fermenting flesh still stained the air, in the otherwise remarkably clean vessel. Perhaps burrowing its way in any seam it could, from the rising fumes of the city itself. The train docked into a station invested in one of the buildings glued to ceiling like a metal spider egg, or a globular stalactite coliseum. Its altitude made it a hard target for less well to do vagabonds from enjoying an extended stay aboard the train or the terminal, except for the exceptionally crafty few Transit Traders who found a way to make it their lifestyle.


    The doors slid open a mass bodies poured out while some backwash seeped back in, Geoffrey stood observing, grappling to his grab rail pole. He was already sweating, pooling splotches under his armpits that were well camouflage by his black suit. Secretly he was dying of thirst, having completed only half of the 1-hour transit to the lower bottom quadrant of the ship. He tried to maintain his cool cut composure, which was still maintaining fairly well, until the invisible wave of humid exhaust engulfed him in dense humidity after unintentionally being invited inside by the clamoring transit goers. ¡°Damn!¡± Geoffrey hunched over as if he too took a slug to the gut, panting for breath while drawing in more heat than breathable air. He pulled himself back up on the pole next to him, before thrashing to unzip the suit jacket of his uniform that he now felt was suffocating him. He freed himself form jacket, revealing his plain white tank-top and a huge chunk of hardware that covered half his forearm. He then resumed his hunched over panting stance, drowning in sweat as his breathing returned to a less frantic state. He remembered he did have his flask full with his 8oz ration of water, which was mandated equipment for officer personnel, and he hadn¡¯t changed the water in it in months. It would have to do for now to avoid a pit stop into the unknown. He paced his chugs being careful not to drown himself more than he already was, to ensure not a drop would be wasted. He then crashed backward on the hard yellowed enamel of the bench seat behind him, under normal circumstances he preferred standing, surveying, analyzing his environment. If anxiety could ever be a super power it almost was for him, he was a threat hunter, or at least that¡¯s how he thought of his ability. The double-edged sword of his razor-sharp keenness was a supernatural paranoia that gave him jittery hair trigger reflexes, but he could hear a pen drop from the front of the train if he was listening for it, when he wasn¡¯t being haunted by the whisperers of the dead.


    ¡°Yes, this is first officer Greis Keis. I¡¯m sending you an officer for a special deployment mission, I would like you to give him a full rundown of the suit¡¯s functionality, so he¡¯ll be as prepared as possible. But I have a modification request, I want you to rig his navigation to randomize coordinates every 30 minutes.¡± Said Greis resting his Lan phone beneath his tilted head propped up by his arm.


    ¡°Sir, Are you sure?!¡± Replied the maintenance chief, unsettled by the peculiarity of the unusual request.


    ¡°Absolutely. Make it happen!¡± He smirked as a spark of excitement jolted across his eyes, like a mischievous scientist running some volatile experiment of ambiguous ethicality.


    ¡°Uhhhh, yes sir!¡± He replied affirming his cooperation, although enthusiastically.

 A_____ of B________

    The train pulled into its final terminal at the bottom rear of the ship. The abrasive crust of corroded metal on the tracks could be felt during the descent as turbulence rattled the pill shaped train cars, like a single file line of overinflated slugs. The red light was rendered insignificant without visible structure to paint it¡¯s light on in sight. The Car sized cylinder light fixtures attached to the ceiling, some decent distance away from the train rail, poured their light into the large breach of darkness, the reach it¡¯s faint glimmering spears of red, we cut short, apprehended by the assimilation of shadow, making them look like more of a dome of red spikes rather than an actual light source. This station was dark empty, it¡¯s rusted-brown, gaping-mouthed-metal, open air station seemed to be floating in the blackness of space, even the train seemed like a foreign entity there. Geoffrey gazed about outside the train cabin, with an apprehensive uncertainty. ¡°Is this the real fucking place?¡° Thinking he should be more relieved to reach his destination. The train dinged announcing it had arrived at its destination. A red text scrolled past on a black thin strip of monitor above the door ¡°Septic and Sanitation Headquarters¡±. This was it  He guessed, even after double checking with his data terminal armband that ran form his wrist halfway to his elbow. He stepped out of the dingy yellow light, that felt almost cozy, as he left. Noticing the relief he felt of fresh air on his face, and back into his lungs again, the peculiar taste and smell of petroleum seemed insignificant now, compared to the feeling of being suffocated by a damp sock over his head.


    The metal grate floor rattled a little more than he liked as he steeped out on to it, even his sharp eyes could barely distinguish the holes from the metal itself. It was dark burgundy with a faint red gleam that could only be seen at a certain angle, that seemed move with him as he did, which he monitored closely to make sure he was still walking on a platform, instead of plunging into the abyss below. Deep below him he could the surface of an ocean that could go on forever and perhaps take up the whole width of the ship, with the same red glint, that seemed to flicker as the waves splashed below him. ¡°God only knows what that sauce is made of!¡± And he did not want to die finding out. He waked along the metal caged hallway from the platform that, without it¡¯s roof, would look more like it helicopter¡¯s landing pad. He could feel some sway with the platform that was more than just his footsteps, like it was anchored to a skyscraper designed to sway under a current of wind, but in this case the the current was the slosh of the murk below. He trekked along the skeleton of a bridge toward a burning white flare to eyes adapted to darkness. ¡°This better be where I¡¯m supposed to go.¡± He thought and not some postulating antics throwing him into the control group of some hair brained experiment.


    He made his way to a massive building that seemed like some infinitely tall hotel, surrounded by a brief reprieve from the surrounding darkness that was a flat plane of asphalt. A parking lot that would never see cars , perhaps to give a comforting illusion of living on the earth still, that was probably just a loitering lot. Near the entrance of the building was a small plaza of rounded bricks orbited by patches of fake grass with plotted trees, that looked spliced with a Fly Agaric mushroom, with it¡¯s red bark and swirling white blotches that looked like several layered streaks of paint. They wrapped themselves around light posts, feeding on the secondhand light, generated somewhere from within it¡¯s spongy looking leaves tangled with jousting spear-like thorns forming their mushroom cloud shaped foliage. He approached the brick walkway clearing in front of the wide glass windowed entrance of the building. He could now read the giant steel letters, no longer hidden by the blinding glare, just above the entrance that looked like would be more for an old cinema building, that read ¡°Outrigger Junction Estates¡±. ¡°¡¯Estates¡¯ seems like pretty generous word. More like slave cubicles.¡± he thought upon investigating the exterior of the building above, noticing the windows between units, some of which had been rotted out of existence like a tooth with a nefariously intervened neglect of hygiene, looked nearly conjoined from a distance. The automatic sliding glass doors invited him in as he approached. The brightness of the light seemed to dull to a less abrasive light of a fairly mundane hotel lobby with a light gray aesthetic, a counter for vats heated coffee, and recreation lounge area, that he fantasized about into diving face first into the cushions of.


    ¡°Hey, there what brings you here?¡± A security guard behind the front desk asked who¡¯s face was barley poking over from his chair.


    ¡°Special mission I guess, from the command deck. This is Septic and Sanitation?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s this level! Where you headed? Give me your I.D. I authenticate a lift pass.¡±


    He flipped out a badge from somewhere underneath his jacket draped around his waist, with some reluctance to relinquish it, he handed it to him between his pointer and index finger, a lingering bodily habit of having smoked for 3 years. ¡°My mission report said to head here, then to transit down to Chassis Town.¡±


    ¡°Damn! You look so young in this photo, You¡¯re an officer?!¡± Remarked the guard upon inspecting his ID photo, that was take when Geoffrey was 18, even though he looked like a frail as a rail 15 years old, In his own opinion.


    ¡°Yeah, complete annihilation of one¡¯s state has that effect on a fellow.¡± Said Geoffrey, subtly letting him know there was more to his story than the fresh-faced prodigy kid on his ID, that was perhaps less savory that the average person would even want to hear about. But no one aboard the Mordant Despair could be wholeheartedly average.


    ¡°Oh ¡­ Yeah, I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯ve come across a lot of people that come from a similar place. Which was it if you don¡¯t mind me asking? New Mexico, or Texas?¡±


    Both of them already knew he was going to say ¡°Texas¡±, based on Geoffrey¡¯s attitude, but secretly he the guard had hoped for New Mexico.


    ¡°Yeah, it Was Texas.¡± He said, telling him the opposite of what he wanted to hear.


    ¡°Shit man, Sorry to hear that! Texas go hit hard, didn''t get the time to evacuate that New Mexico did.¡±


    ¡°Nope, defiantly did not. Guess that whole ¡®Impenetrable Front Line¡¯ The Federal Consortium was bragging about to its citizens, was either a flimsy bluff, or gross negligent leadership. Not really sure I am anymore though.¡± But that¡¯s not what his eyes said as a seething rage had brazed across his eyes. The guard caught it flash through him almost wishing he hadn¡¯t.


    ¡°Yeah, for sure! Definitely why we''re all here is some way, ¡®refugees¡¯ aboard this new home, a new world. But here this will get you where you need to go.¡± He said handing him his ID back along with an elevator key card, trying to drown the flames of trauma, the had unknowingly stoked with his probing.


    ¡°Thanks, I appreciate it.¡± he said having become suddenly a little colder and more withdrawn.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to take the industrial service elevator to the bottom back of the ship. Semper Fi brother!¡± He said pointing down a hallway with a large, complicated vault hatch for a door. Before giving him a nonchalant wave with along with the ancient slogan that was somehow more durable than American systems it was built upon. Though it had lost its true meaning, it was now a catch all for ¡°good luck¡± among societal outliers and those with maverick intent.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    He made his way to the thick vaulted door into with an exorbitantly long opining ceremony, resembling an industrial airlock, that clashed with the sterile mundane access hallway attached to it. into a round-cornered square chamber, doused with that familiar red light, that was some intermediary point before the actual elevator platform, looking like a chimera between a sweaty locker room, or some kind of prison aboard a steam engine. Once inside this preparation bay, he encountered another airlock door, this one with an electronically opened by a spin wheel hatch like the helm of an old boat, for the unfortunate occasion of a manual opening procedure, below a densely plated window built in the middle of the door. Through the pane, he could see the vast empty hold of hangar elevator platform. with several smaller metal elevator capsules about the same size as his current room, pressed up against an angled wall each tethered to its own metal toothed rail system, surrounding the two mountain sized rails for the hangar itself. ¡°The main cargo elevator¡± he told himself still astonished at its magnitude, having not seen it since he started his journey aboard the vessel, that seemed amplified by its current peculiar emptiness. He journeyed across the great prairie of metal. The massive wall of glass wall, that could have been some perfectly sculpted glacier ridge, made up the main hangar door. It poured its dingy pale green light from the rising gasses outside, with some of the red light from above trying to pass through turned into burned scarlet, amber orange color. It looked like a chemical reaction of some science channel being broadcast at a drive-in movie theatre, looking illuminated compared to darkness in the rest of the hangar, making his silhouette look like an ant crossing a plane of darkness.


    He made his way to a to a multi glass paneled dome roofed tower building, that looked something like a disco ball mushroom, functionally similar to an aircraft control tower, that was the hangar bay observation deck. He made his way up the rickety metal plated staircase jury-rigged to the outside, up to an entrance door. He knew his personal ID card would grant him access to one of the smaller modular elevators, only needing the other key to enter, but he had never really been this far on the other side of ship, and he might never be back for along time. ¡°Might as well see what trouble I can get into, if I¡¯m given the opportunity.¡± But he did briefly consider ¡°Is this all an elaborate test, to see what I would do left to my own devices? With no one sent to escort me on this supposedly important wild goose hunt?¡± Though not an entirely preposterous conspiracy theory, It seemed more unlikely, and out of character for Greis Keis to play games, he was a man of direct action , and direct results. But he assumed his paranoia get the best of him. ¡°2<sup>nd</sup> captain Greis usually, has very detailed outlines of his mission parameters.¡± He thought still inflamed with curiosity at the unusual open-ended mission, but he would let it rest for now. He twisted the handle on the door that seemed suspiciously unlocked and entered into the observation terminal that seemed criminally unattended.


    He scanned across the aisles of computer terminals slightly lower than the stoop at the doorway entrance, looking like some hole in the wall casino. To the back rear up another set of stairs was a balcony terminal that looked like a DJ booth. ¡°The elevator command access terminal.¡± He recalled having heard it motioned several times during big scale on-boarding salvage procedures. He bounced his knees up to his waist jogging up the stairs, Imitating military training exercises he had never been subjected to but always admired, that he liked to squeeze in to his daily commutes. He locked his wrist terminal into the wide mouthed hole attached to the computer, locking his hand inside as the computer started booting up. ¡°ID Access required¡± appeared on the screen. He sliced his bar-coded ID badge through a thin seam that ran between his wrist terminal, to the ¡°Sleeve Dock¡± he was now attached to. ¡°Authorization Successful.¡± appeared on the screen as his hand and wrist was unlocked and ejected by the terminal. He then navigated an on-screen menu linked to his arm device. ¡°Descent Schedules, Intake Schedules, Mass Decontamination Procedure.¡± He pressed Descent Schedules, that opened a window showing a weekly time grid based on hours, with only one event scheduled, two days from now for a 4-hour docking decent. ¡°Let¡¯s update the schedule!¡± He said overtaken by mischievous curiosity. He scheduled a new descent for 5 minutes from now. Would It be that easy? Or was some crucial step missing?  He wondered  as he waited  wanting to see the full capacity of the ship¡¯s main cargo elevator. He walked out into the main hangar bay watching the green numbers on his digital stopwatch frantically change numbers as the seconds ticked by like some gas pump price monitor, as if siphoning gas from the tank instead of filling it. Once the numbers dropped below 1 minute on his timer, the entire facility bay lit up. Orange spinning alarm lights swept across the floor as it was being scanned for anomalies. The alarm screamed howling with its different pitch intervals as the lights painted a black and orange bar code on the floor and walls that seemed to orbit around the room. A brief smirk could be seen, if caught by a keen investigative eye, as light ran across him at regular intervals. He hadn¡¯t really felt real excitement like this in awhile. Too Long. In his opinion he had been more goal focused than soul focused.


    The entire facility shook beneath him, a less agile person might have lost their balance, he had not yet whiteness this aspect of the full power of the mordant despair. The room began to descend sending a quake through it as it passed each colossal gear tooth on the rail system. A minute or so later the building made contact with the septic fluid below. It gurgled against the glass as air bubbles released through the dense substance, like being dunked in boiling maple syrup, or some volcanic lava that could not solidify. It did however contain crusty brown chunks that floated on the surface like ice bergs, but instead petrified meteors made of shit. Once he hit a certain depth the alarm system ceased making its racket. The deep the room submerged the darker the room became within minutes Geoffrey could not see his hand in front of his face. The darkness settled, the calm clanking of the metal could be heard drugging on, the only reassurance that he was still on course to his destination without looking at a monitor.


    Eventually the gears stopped, along with the quakes in the hangar. He could hear a new set of noised among the absolute darkness. Some large thud above him, signaling he was out of the septic sanitation hull. A large droning roared like an automated car wash dryer as excess fluid was vacuumed away from any seam it could try to hide in. A large flat sounding beep signaled the process had finished. He could hear the sliding of the massive metal walls below him, as faint rays of light traced the glass just enough for it¡¯s existence to be once again verified.


    The hangar began to chug on downward like a steam engine scaling a steel mountainside. Geoffrey stared at the glass wall before him with impatient anticipation, as the room crept lower, and more and more light made its way in. Now standing right in front of the glass he could see the whole city from a bird¡¯s eye view. Was it the same as he remembered?  The last time he saw it was a chaotic frenzy for refugees of the blood sand desert of good old New Mexico, burned orange by the finally setting sun of, of the skin eating flame storms in Dirge of Desolation. The Orange gold painted city of frenzy seemed like a fever dream compared to what he saw before him now. it probably was a fever from the heat at the time.  The last time he was here he remembered it for the miracle sanctuary that it was, but also the tragedy. Seeing the ship security sifting through the piles of corpses to distinguish the dead a from the dehydrated, and those who wished they were dead, who were promptly given what they asked for. ¡°I¡¯m glad I wasn¡¯t in the piles being gnawed at by the rats, glad I was still coherent enough to get aboard, and fight through the horde of people who didn¡¯t even know they were already dead. Glad I got to whiteness it with my own two eyes.¡± Something that branded his soul that he made sure not to forget. Any reservations he had about the rot and corruption he saw under the hood of Odesscyrah, at least it wasn¡¯t That. Inhuman cruelty, literally inhuman. Just like some goddamn undead, Monsters. Remembering Afghanastasia psychedelic virus, they even used on their own people, a method of forced capitulation. They only give the cure to those who willingly commit to serve. The Unified Body of Worship Allies gave it¡¯s infected a communion serum to maintain their human state. To keep them from mutating into ravenous beasts with cyst like deformities, even going without the communion for a while would leave them permanently altered. But lucky some few, like Geoffrey, were naturally immune. Which to Afghanastasia, were branded Archons of Blasphemy, Damn right I am, if their ¡®god¡¯ allows that, then he will have hell to pay, if he thinks he can hide from me!

 Assailant Surveillance

    The place bore not resemblance to the gold painted landscape he had remembered, reminiscent of some 14<sup>th</sup> century painting of a black plague outbreak. It was calm like a dock on an early morning day, teal blue light poured in from the massive ajar hangar door painting the exposed half of the gray labyrinth of towers with it¡¯s color. Chassis town was now a calm meditative pool of reflection, flooded with fog from outside. It had an aesthetic somewhere between an vine infested Mayan temple, and Miami Florida with Tether Root Palms sprouting from anywhere they could grasp an angle to binge drink the sunlight, with their tangled roots knotted around everything feet could not touch.


    The platform made the sound the loud bellow as it forced the air below it out before locking into place. Geoffrey was mesmerized how familiar yet foreign a place could feel. With real light and real air he only experienced a couple times a year when visiting the outer deck prairies.


    ¡°Damn a man could get lost here and, and never want to find himself again.¡± he recited to himself as took in the city on his decent, considering himself perhaps retiring there one day. Flickering yellow lights, the bustling of human traffic, in the sea of blue buildings that looked like they had been submerged underwater in the current lighting. The elevation hangar fully docked upon a maintenance bay platform, a wide-open plateau that was still elevated higher than most of the buildings, it was essentially an aircraft carrier, that seemed to go along the entire interior mouth of Chassis Town. This docking bay was hoisted upon several ridge-like towers connected together along the wall making it aptly named ¡®Super¡¯ Force Base: Dragon Killer.


    The massive wall of glass rumbled as it raised before him. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils soaking in very essence of the fresh air along with the radioactive exhaust odor that laminated everything in the city, which somehow made him feel more at home that the sterile scentless metal in his normal operating areas. Geoffrey walked out on to the bridge of infinitely chained together rooftop helipads, maintenance workers could be seen moving around the platforms, each running an inspection of some sort, if not wrenching on the aircrafts, which were an amalgamation of different models like some jury-rigged collection of a hoarder, giving them no uniform presence of intimidation. He wondered if some of them could even function safely, or at all.


    A sharply dressed man stormed towards him, not fully dedicated to running but maintaining an unusual stride with a sense of urgency made him more noticeable from a mile away. His pristine suit even more lavish than some he had seen in the bridge city. His clean look was however interrupted by his dingy brown leather brimmed officer cap, that made him look more like a lad of ancient time about to solicit you for a shoeshine, made it know he had been an officer for a long time. His thick oversized rounded glasses took over his face, some custom welding goggles improvised for more casual daily use. A large, rounded steel bowl of a pauldron wrapped around the shoulder of one his glossy chrome robotic arm. Once in within about 5 yards of Geoffrey, he extended his human hand for an awkward left-handed shake and yelled ¡°Jayce Vayne!¡±. Said the man yelling loud enough to wake a deaf man in space who was definitely accustomed to talking over aircraft engines, and perhaps was hard of hearing himself.


    ¡°Geoffrey!¡± he replied and immediately began clenching his teeth while attempting a smile, as the tight callus grip of a grease monkey began constricting his nimbler hand. He always was abrasive to the gung-ho types, considering himself more of a sleuth operationist.


    ¡°So you''re the new sacrifice sent to the thicket?!¡±


    ¡°Sacrifice?¡± Geoffrey quarreled, with a, look that called the man¡¯s judgement into question.


    ¡°Yeah, you know when lone stragglers, get sent down here for things, they usually don¡¯t come back, at least now who they were before. But I guess it¡¯s easier than the difficult conversation of firing someone I suppose!¡± Geoffrey did not doubt the man¡¯s words, he knew Greis wasn¡¯t always known for his pristine ethics, but it still didn¡¯t make any sense to him, he made himself a reliable asset. Was he too reliable? Was he a threat in some way? The answer still seemed to be ¡°No¡±, Greis was reasonable, and he had given no indication of disloyalty, or taken no actions of superseding his authority, no matter how unconventional it seemed. He always saw Greis as some sort of slightly eccentric uncle or something, ever since he made his way to the bridge. No it must be something different. He speculated. ¡°So what brings you down to my lair of despair, Mr. Geoffrey?¡±


    The man¡¯s charm had worn off, his pleasantries now seemed more like a condescending antagonistic death wish.


    ¡°Crucial Business. I¡¯m on assignment to assail the captain himself, I presume inconspicuously.¡± Said Geoffrey firing back with a stoic authoritative answer that he was more important than some dumb young man in a sweat tainted tank top.


    ¡°The Captain¡± he said, tilting his head away as if something had erupted his train of thought momentarily, before his two placid black lake goggles back toward Geoffrey. ¡°Now there¡¯s an interesting man! Very Unusual. Doesn¡¯t come through here very often, not that he would have great reason to. Been years in fact since I¡¯ve seen the man, and I rather wish I hadn¡¯t.¡± He Said lifting flipping open his goggle chambers revealing his eyes sockets. One of which looked more normal, the other looked very abnormal, but Geoffrey recognized the half mountainous gold crescent moon shaped iris that was common among ¡°The kin of the captain¡± as they were often called. The bottom half of the skin surrounding the eyes was several shades lighter than the darker skin color that completely encircled his normal eye, making it look like a brown and white ying-yang sign, with the white part full of lightning bolts made up of varicose veins. The crescent stood out on the black surface of his moon eye. but curiously the eye with a traditional Iris, still surrounded by white, was a crystal blue color that seemed to be being overtaken by the black color which had already turned his whole other eye into some inhuman insect pupil. Geoffrey stared perplexed in disbelief, as is whatever the captain has, or was contagious rather than the rumored genetic anomaly or mutation.


    ¡°Damn! You some sort of cousin of his?¡± Geoffrey dredged for any ounce of details he could discover.


    ¡°Not as far as I know! Maybe now I am, who really knows to be honest. They say the man can kill you with just his eyes, and I can¡¯t say I don¡¯t doubt it. But I looked him strait in the eyes, caught his gaze, I think I caught him by surprise, he gasped at he looked at me. Then it felt like a demon crawled into my soul through my goddamn eye sockets, like I was staring into the sun, my eyes burned for days afterwards. It didn¡¯t kill me. But some rank foul power that is, maybe a curse, maybe I will die sooner than I should. All I know is the light burns my eyes now, gotta where these goddamn ridiculous glasses everywhere. And all I can remember the prick saying afterwards was ¡®Sorry.¡¯ If I didn¡¯t have good life, if I wasn''t who I was, and he wasn¡¯t who he was, if were strangers in a dark alley I think I¡¯d let the instincts take me over.¡± Sid the man with a tear, perhaps of anger welling in his still more human eye. Geoffrey stared back empathetically, know that the world was pain, some people could avoid a lot of it, as he tried to do with his catlike reflexes, and supernatural intuition, and cold calculated algorithm of reasoning. Those were his shields, his devices, his weapon against the world. But he knew sometime no matter how high you build your tower; pain will find a way to you.


    ¡°How could this happen? He¡¯s clearly not lying; something must have happened. I''ve never seen anyone be stricken down by pure eyesight, that¡¯s ridiculous. He had seen the captain briefly, numerous times, always vague, mysterious, brief, definitely introverted, but never even remotely intimidating to anyone. Something didn¡¯t add up, something wasn¡¯t making sense. But I¡¯m on the case now, maybe that¡¯s why Greis chose me.¡± He speculated to himself while gazing upon the man¡¯s transfigured anomaly. He had never even heard of anything like this happening, and he heard a lot, this must be some deeper secret, and he would find it. He did recall a ¡°Lightning Face Jayce¡± name he had overheard somewhere before suddenly came crawling back into his memory. It made sense now.


    ¡°So be careful out there Mr. Geoffrey, might find more than your looking for.¡± He said his pompous cynicism replaced by genuine interest and concern. ¡°Got the requisition for your suit, it¡¯ll be waiting for you down in the infantry arsenal maintenance bay, take the ellie down to the 52<sup>nd</sup> floor. Semper Fi, Mr. Geoffrey.¡± Geoffrey nodded back in concurrence.


    He made his way over to a building that looked like a large utility shed, which did have a small outlet attached for exactly that, but was predominantly stairwell and elevator access. He made his way inside greeted to a brass lined stairwell with a beige mosaic tile pattern on the floor before the almost-gold brass elevator doors. A darker bronze metal made up the rails and the bars of the stairway system with the same beige design somehow overflowing on to the walls making the concrete slab staircase seem more inviting than any traditional military would have. ¡°We are pirates after all.¡± he told himself upon inspecting the bronze chandelier that gave the room an inviting aura to traverse even for mundane tasks, Implying that financial incentive was ultimately what kept this flying fortress lubed up and running as opposed the to the malignant variant of patriotic rhetoric used to inoculate the denizens of the Federal Consortium. The ellie doors slid open to a rounded chamber looking more like a glass paneled, iron bared bird cage, with a continuance of beige tiles running inside with a browned yellow version of the ¡°Dusk Skull¡± insignia on his jacket sleeve. He could see the entire city with a better view than the one he already had on the roof. ¡°Damn, they did not slack when they designed this place!¡± he said aloud, ¡°they¡± meaning the precursors of humanity during the Apocalyptic wars some nearly 300 odd years ago. He was impressed but somehow uneasy to feel himself hovering above the city, as if the curved wall of glass between him and a 100 story fall might be imaginary all together. He dialed 52 followed by the # sign in the elevator keypad to take him to his destination, a common insurance tactic to avoid some miscreant nuisance from slathering their hands over the buttons of all the floors at once. He did wonder if there was also some secret code, he could enter to perhaps take him to a restricted access floor, but he didn¡¯t not let the thought continue to invade his mind. The door sealed behind him sealing him inside the tube. The elevator began to sink, as he stood hooked on the intangible view that he could not get anywhere else aboard the ship, or earth. His orange hazel eyes in the yellow light of the elevator seemed to clash against the frozen blue silver city. He watched as the city seemingly grew larger as he was taken downward, with a black steel shackle passing over the elevator window glass with each floor, obscuring his laser focus from drilling through the glass and into the city momentarily, the only thing reminding him he was still in his body and not some celestial entity descending upon the city. The elevator came to halt with a slight tremor followed by a curious chime played as the doors began to slide open, sending Geoffrey back into his body, begrudgingly. The door opened to a hallway thick with the scent of burning and metal, a gristly chasm of machinery haunted by grease drinking ghouls that seemed to nimbly crawl around whatever machine they were working on. A hallway of some nocturnal cluttered with generous sized cubicles, for assemblers and maintenance men to each have their own territorial domain for individual projects. On this floor the windows to the city were replaced by thick blankets of steel, maybe to stave away the ballista of light from their sunshine allergic skin, or perhaps to stop their catacomb of machinery colluding with the lesser mortal caste. The beings that dwelled here relished the dark and savored the sanctity of their seclusiveness. He stepped out into the T intersection of the hallway, that looked like it could have been a forsaken dentist''s office, that had now become a labyrinthine machine shop tunnel. Geoffrey stared down one side of the hallway that was roaring with any kind of took that could be heard. The darkness ruled area was lit by a dim amber cone of scattered light pouring from a bar grated panel on the ceiling along the walkway area, with flashes of light occasionally splashing out of the breaches in the cubicle courtyards, with one even spraying a fountain of sparks into the interior walkway, like some malfunctioning sprinkler of fireflies spraying the sidewalk instead of the lawn.


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    He had only turned his back for about half a moment when a station attendant slithered up behind with an unpronounced speed that couldn¡¯t be entirely human.


    ¡°Welcome sir.¡± the screech of the voice said like it was metal scraping metal.


    ¡°What?! the F¡­¡± Geoffrey for a brief moment startled by the unpredicted visit, that even his ultra keen senses could not detect. Geoffrey flicked himself around to see a sliver of man hovering just below his elbow.


    ¡°Minister Geoffrey, yes?¡± Said the abbreviated man like creature, draped in black suit coat that made its gray hands and face seem more human. It¡¯s two beady glints for irises, like a neon signs mostly submerged in black tar syrup staring back up at him, inspired by some uncomfortable eagerness.


    ¡°Minister, huh?¡± He thought. That was a new one. ¡°Some damn mutant, aberration of humanity.¡± he speculated staring down at the half man, briefly wondering where the elevator had actually taken him, as if in his trance he had somehow slipped into a new dimension inhabited by these elegant goblins. Once the shock of intrusion had fully discharged, he could more clearly assess the being before him. The slender angled chin of cunning negotiator, with some rock like cheek bones hoisted above his shallow cheeks. Its narrow-focused gaze made the luster in its nearly devoid eyes more prying with its lack of eyebrows. Its lightning blonde seemed to actually glow against the cacophony of its dark features and concrete complexion. If it was a normal human Geoffrey entrained, he could perhaps have been a celebrity model, among the mundane citizen world.


    ¡°Yeah¡­, I see you were expecting me.¡±


    ¡°As is my duty and my pleasure.¡± Said the elf like creature with it¡¯s ear littered with gold piercings and the tops of it¡¯s ears wrapped around like a tail hanging just under it¡¯s earlobe, while giving a glimpse of his gray rusted metal teeth as he spoke.


    ¡°Here for a suit. Going outside the ship.¡±


    ¡°Yes we have one prepped for the specifications Greis personally requested, hopefully it will serve you and your mission well. Please follow me to the equipment bay.¡± said the nimble creature drifting in front of him toward one side of the hallway.


    ¡°Sure.¡± he replied and began tailing the creature who seemed to hover in front of him with its coat masking the rhythm of its soundless footsteps. He followed down the long canal pathway that ran along the interior side of the hallway. The path was a mosaic of flat symmetrical ¡°L¡± shaped polished metal plates, with seems between where excess fluid could drain. As he passed every so many cubicles, he noticed a warped curvature in the floor with a circular drain sloped next to the path he was on, like a public communal shower one would preferably not walk barefoot in. He noticed black rivers of presumably, oil funneling into the orbit of the drains. Some of them pooled into big puddles that hid the drain and the curvature of the floor, that made it look more like a river basin swamp, that was in fact draining, just not at a pace fast enough to deal with volume of fluids. Peering into the cubicles he could see more creatures like the one before him, that seemed vastly more primitive than the one escorting him, like gray hairless monkeys driven mad by malfunctioning machinery. They did have some notion of human modesty most of them wearing some kind of clothing over their lower half, one hanging upside-down from a machine carcass with it¡¯s iguana like feet, as it furiously cranked it¡¯s wrench with a spiteful fanged grimace. His boots clanged against the metal plates on the ground but were mostly drown out by the sounds, rivets guns , saws drills and welding torches. ¡°So if you don¡¯t mid me asking, what exactly are you guys?¡± He said raising his voice to a shout loud enough to be heard over the droning of machinery. He remained quiet not sure if his words had made it to the beings ears, not wanting to repeat himself, Maybe it didn¡¯t matter anyway.


    ¡°We¡¯re a class of human, mostly. Just a product of the wasteland, an adaptation of The Annihilation Era. What¡¯s more remarkable is that you¡¯re still around, you know, traditional mankind. We call ourselves ¡®Ayrvelen¡¯ a kind of word somewhere between revenant and survivor. We unlike fragile humans are sturdy, inoculated to radiation, as a human¡¯s skin would tan in the sunlight ours hardens in the fallout. There are stories of the early tribes unifying, making war with the beasts, as they inheritors of the surface. But legions of traditional humans did rise again as if in hibernation, with weapons of the old world.¡±  The creature continued forward speaking in a very clear loud tone like a proper tour guide.


    ¡°Radiation Immunity is quite a gift, wouldn¡¯t need a suit at all if I had that, but I¡¯ve never heard of these creatures. A secret weapon against the Federal Consortium? That would seem too easy, they must have their own equivalent, if not a fully automated repair system. Definitely useful for us though.¡± he thought as he marinated on the words he had heard. ¡°But what about you? The ones aboard this ship, what brings you here?¡±


    ¡°Same thing that brings everyone aboard The Mordant Despair, sometimes just a fresh start, but more likely revenge. The rise of governments saw us as something to be tamed, if not outright destroyed, we were hunted alongside the greater mutant beasts that had evolved to conquer the landscape.  But the worst perpetrators were the ones know as ¡®Game Wardens¡¯ they took sport in hunting us watching us suffer, burning us out of our warrens, not even to just gun us down, but to laugh as we suffered as if lesser beings. For a time we hid, we ran, we survived, but now most of us have partnered with the ¡°Selectively Secret Sovereignty (of Separatists)¡¯ though the any nation would have us dumbly labeled a ¡®pirates. One need only hiss the S.S.S. sound to another member to verify membership. But surely a minister of the top deck must be familiar with this?¡±


    ¡°Clever, trying to pick my mind too I see, I guess information is closely guarded on all parts of the ship, but maybe it¡¯s not always best if the body knows what the arms are doing. Must be curious to hear about top deck affairs, can¡¯t say I wouldn''t.¡± Thought Geoffrey now calculating a worthwhile response. ¡°That¡¯s definitely more of the sentiment aboard this ship. I¡¯ve been to Pisswash Cistern, for our biannual dock there, A marvel of malice that floating island of scrap out in the middle of the Pacific. There is the whole ¡®honor among pirates¡¯ jargon some people throw around, but calling it an actual origination, is hopeful at best. Even the ¡°Good¡± pirates are usually just out for themselves, meeting their status quo for survival, and the bad ones will cut a man down for a handful of Abes (pennies). It¡¯s a rickety alliance at best, wouldn¡¯t trust half the lot myself with my own fate much less the fate of humanity. But I am a betting man, And I¡¯m doubling down on the ¡®Holy Trinity¡¯ so to speak. The Mordant Despair, The Cardinal Seance, and The Albatross Atrocity, the only pirates I know on an actual mission, ¡®Rebuild the world, end the wars, stifle the Federal Consortium, or any government trying their hand ant global conquest. That¡¯s something I can get behind, and the warring nations yeah they¡¯re powerful, but they¡¯re blind with top heavy leadership that even sabotage each other from within. In my opinion the whole state of the world is a castle on cliff with a crumbling foundation, ¡®Death by a 1000 cuts¡¯, I¡¯m just making sure when the world does fall into chaos, someone is there to pick it back up again.¡± The two made their way around the corner of the building, to a break in the conundrum of cubicles. Passing an empty corner lobby area wedged between two cubicles itself with some benches and tables for reprieve, a coffee table overloaded with weathered magazines, the only new glossy one being, the monthly ¡®Mordant Chronicle¡¯ printed and distributed onboard.  With a few ash trays filled with cigarette burial mounds on the end tables wedged between the benches. All pasted with the blue glow from the cornered windows giving an actual view of the city with a reprieve from the endless metal.


    ¡°Glad to hear you¡¯re a man of integrity and Ideals, the world seems to be running short on those at the moment, at least the ones brave enough to act on them. I do agree we are in a tumultuous time, feel like the fate of existence is hanging on a coin flip.¡±


    ¡°Yeah that¡¯s why I¡¯m going to influence the coin flip if I can, or make sure, we¡¯re the referees catching it.¡±  The two approached a massive double sliding door with an adjacent kiosk.


    ¡°Well we¡¯ll have you on your way minister Geoffrey. Here we are, the main sanctum requisition depository.¡± the being said as it flicked it¡¯s had over the keyboard, entering the keys as if it had 6 finger on it¡¯s hand casting the spell to open the door. The giant metal doors began sliding apart revealing a huge chamber reliquary arsenal.  The two entered into the forest of machines, a labyrinth of 4-way intersections divided by refurbished weapons of war, that only a person familiar with them could actually find what they were looking for.  ¡°Ahhhh suits, I think there yours is here in this section.¡± Sounding just barely less certain about things than he had been maintaining before, straining to recall exact details. They approached a docking rig holstering the suit with arms and legs spread wide, for clinical detail inspection.