Author Topic: FICTION: Company Business  (Read 6913 times)

JWBullfrog

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FICTION: Company Business
« on: October 28, 2013, 03:00:02 AM »
Hi there. It's me again with more of my curious obsession with episodic fiction.
 
If you read my previous effort (it's still here BTW if you're interested) this story picks up part way through that one. If you haven't read that one, don't worry. There are no major spoilers here.
 
As always, I'll be posting an episode a week until all is said and done. If you feel like commenting, you are welcome to do so but please send those as private messages. Thank you.
 
So, to start this one off, I'll post the first two episodes now.
 
Enjoy.  --  JWB
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 1
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2013, 03:01:33 AM »
"Missing? What, exactly, do you mean by missing?"
    Madam Masada rarely got angry. It wasn't because she was one of those rare people who had infinite patience or a saintly manner, it was that she had been taught long ago that getting emotional over something she could not control made a person vulnerable and vulnerability was counter-productive. She also knew her temper all too well. There were a significant number of corpses in her past that acted as reminders of her vulnerability. As she felt her grip on the phone tightening, she reminded herself that a person in her position was expected to deal with problematic persons and situations with a finely tuned balance of poise and irritation.
    It didn't help that one of those persons was on the other end of the telephone presenting her with one of those situations.
    Etherfalcon personified more than a few flaws in her mind. Arrogance, egotism, impulsiveness, and a complete lack of tact; but, when she forced herself to be objective about him, she had to admit that he was an effective ally, or at least a partner of similar purpose. Since it was inefficient to discard a useful relationship, she made every effort to treat him fairly.
    It wasn't always easy.
    "... I knew her exact location up until forty eight hours ago when she left Nassau. I had a fully automated watch on her that didn't give any indication of trouble. Once she missed her check in at Santo Domingo, I put my local agents on alert and reviewed the data. There was a laughingly poor attempt by pirates to board her yacht but that ended very quickly. After that, " Etherfalcon's voice paused as he tried to find a way to say the next phrase that wouldn't offend his sense of how the universe was supposed to work. "after that, the Katana and everyone aboard simply vanished."
    "Vanished." The tone of Madam's voice was calm and well moderated. Flat might have been a better word for it.
    Etherfalcon started speaking again before she could express her displeasure at his impreciseness. "Yes, vanished. Although the pirates did some minor damage to the ship, it did not explode, catch fire, or to the best of my knowledge, sink. There are no recorded distress calls either live or automated and it's highly unlikely that they could have changed course and made port elsewhere without me knowing. The ship is not adrift. I'd have spotted it by now. The only anomaly is an unusual energy spike several hours after the abortive attack. From that point onward, there was no trace of them."
    Madam had long since counted to ten. She had, in fact, gotten closer to one thousand. She had given him the simple task of watching one single person and he...
    Then again, it was Alexis they were talking about.
    "You will be investigating?" It was the least interrogative and most commanding question in the history of spoken communication. To her further annoyance, he seemed to anticipate it.
    "I'm heading to Nassau within the hour," he said almost cheerfully. "Shall I meet you at the airport, or just send a car?"
    Madam calmly placed the handset back in it's cradle. There was no point in taking out her irritation on something she'd have to replace. After a moment she pressed the call button on her desk.
    "Rebecca, would you come in here for a moment. Something has come up."
    In the office outside Madam's suite, Rebecca Woodley stood up from behind the pile of boxes and stacks of papers that covered most of the horizontal surfaces in her office. She had been in Madam's employ for just over a month and she had grown tired of being asked questions and not being able to provide the answers. She knew that there were supposed to be files that had all of the information she needed but she could not find them.
    Through her long career in both the military and law enforcement, she accepted the absolute truth of the quote from Napoleon: 'an army marches on it's stomach.' Logistics and information were more vital to any successful operation than most people understood so, in a thoroughly regretted impulse, she had decided to locate and organize the files. 
    It had taken her three days just to find where they had been kept, another four days to get them organized, and she'd been working with them almost continuously for the last five days just to try and make them make sense. She had been working fourteen hour days on the project and that was including her normal daily tasks.
    She was beginning to understand the phrase 'too old for this.'
    At the sound of Madam's call, Rebecca carefully went through the mental checklist she'd adopted many years earlier. Even before she had learned that being in Madam's employ meant a certain level of decorum, she'd found it useful to appear as professional as possible when on the clock. You had to spend less time convincing people to listen to you when your appearance stated, 'I have the answers.' She pulled the pen out from behind her ear and grabbed the gold blazer that was part of her uniform off of the back of her desk chair. As she settled the shoulders of the blazer, she checked her appearance in a small mirror.
    Her shoulder length hair, which she was still getting used to having after wearing it short for the best part of a decade, was brushed back and reasonably neat. It might have looked a bit lighter than it's usual shade of dark brown, but she allowed for the influence of the lights . She tried not to think that, perhaps, small strands of gray were to blame. She made a mental note to buy some dye the next time she got to the store.
    She didn't need to fix her makeup since she never wore more than a light base coat to smooth out the slight color variations of her skin and hide the faint lines that time was imposing on her. She didn't feel she had much that needed improvement in any case. She had no illusions about her appearance. She was, by most modern standards, average bordering on plain, broader of shoulder and hip and more muscular than fashion demanded, but she'd learned to work with what she had. 
    Satisfied that she would pass inspection, Rebecca edged her way around the piles of paper and stepped into Madam's office.
    "Yes Ma'am?"
    Madam waved her inside with a small gesture that also indicated the elegant but comfortable chairs off to one side of her desk. Rebecca took that as something between an invitation and an order. As she settled (it had been explained to her that trying to rush Madam was a poor idea) she watched her employer intently. Madam normally moved with the grace of a dancer but her movements as she moved the files on her desk into various locking drawers were uncharacteristically choppy and short.
    "I'm going to need to change my itinerary for the next few days," Madam said without any prelude. "I apologize for the short notice but I'll be leaving town within the hour to address some business issues. I don't know how long I'll be gone but I would like you to continue with the inspection tour we had planned."
    The inspection. Rebecca had gotten so buried in paper that she had almost forgotten that Madam had planned to visit several of the businesses that she owned. It was seemingly an innocent gesture but all of the companies on the list had some flaw that needed correcting. Madam had found that the simplest way to do that was to make a personal visit and remind everyone there (in an understated and completely unmistakable way) exactly who they worked for and what was expected from them. Madam rarely had to visit the same place twice.
    "Since you're still not familiar with all of the locations in question, I'll be providing you with an escort and access to certain powers of attorney should you need them." Madam stopped rearranging and looked at her assistant. "Do you have any questions?"
    "Yes Ma'am," Rebecca paused to consider the best way to phrase her question. "What's Ms. Alexander done this time?"
    Madam laughed. She thought she'd been controlling herself better than that. Rebecca continued to impress her.
    "Is it that obvious?"
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 2
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2013, 03:02:35 AM »
Paragon Municipal Airport originally opened in 1922. The city leaders of the day showed an uncharacteristic amount of foresight by approving designs that not only accommodated the largest aircraft of the time but insuring that the facilities were built with an eye to future expansion. Improvements were made over the years and, as the city's reputation as a hub for commerce grew, the airport grew along with it.
    During the Second World War, dozens of ports along the eastern seaboard were shipping men and supplies to the war in Europe. Due to a few...unique... factors,  Paragon City was considered the safest.
     The airfield was home to the Navy's First Special Air Combat Wing, The Mystery Men. The squadron held the distinction of being the only Navy aerial unit not to use aircraft and were often seen escorting convoys heading for the combat in Europe.  Recognizable heroes of the day such as Hat In the Ring, Kaptan Wunderfaal, Cloud Angel, and the first Blue Sky Ranger were rumored to have been members, but the squadron never existed on any official wartime lists.
      Officially, the squadron was never recognized publically until well after the war. Unofficially they accounted for fifteen submarine kills, thirty air to air victories, and at least two hundred rescues at sea. Several of the heroes, such as Cloud Angel (who, for a short while rivalled Betty Grable's popularity as a pin up girl) became celebrities, but none of them were given their proper acknowledgement until a small plaque, paid for by a private citizen named David Drake, appeared in the departures lounge.
    After the war, the airfield combined with the city's existing rail terminals and harbor to become the heart of the city's economic engine. Millions of dollars in trade passed through the city but, despite all of the success, and due to the unique hazards of Paragon City airspace, the airfield never became a significant passenger hub. Flights were limited to smaller regional providers or privately owned business aircraft.
    David Drake stood just inside hangar 3A watching as his company's blue and silver trimmed Gulfstream 550 underwent final flight checks. He resisted the urge to check his watch, tap his toes, cross his arms, or show any other sign of impatience. His flight crew were doing their jobs with the skill and precision he had hired them for so he didn't really have any reason to complain, it was just the fact that there far too many things beyond his control at the moment.
    David Drake hated not feeling in control. His training had emphasized the idea of 'knowledge is power' and it had become the cornerstone of not only his business life, but his life as a crimefighter. As Etherfalcon, he had a reputation of being ten steps ahead of his allies and even farther ahead of his enemies. Rumor had it that he could not be surprised, or outwitted. He was Fear incarnate, he was Justice, in a test of wills against him, you'd lose and he had a plan for everything.
    It was all true of course.
    Actually it was all nonsense and he knew it, but if your opponent was willing to admit defeat before the battle had even begun, there was a good chance that you wouldn't have to fight them at all. More than a few times he had dropped silently out of the sky or stepped dramatically out of the shadows to watch criminals falling all over themselves to surrender. The few that didn't usually had very little time to realize how outclassed they were before he rendered them unconscious. Etherfalcon was a legend among the citizens of Paragon City and he had the respect of everyone.
    Everyone not named Madam Masada, that is.
    He could see her car crossing the tarmac and he allowed himself a small smile. He knew she wouldn't be able to resist dealing with the current situation personally. Etherfalcon had learned over the years of their association that Madam had an almost archaic, feudalistic, view of the world. She was, for lack of a better word, God-Empress of her own network of information brokers, escorts, baristas, dentists and dry cleaners. If you were one of her loyal subjects, you could count on good pay, excellent benefits, pleasant working conditions, and a comfortable retirement. Failure was usually granted a single chance to make amends but betrayal was met with swift and final punishment. If she saw you as a personal threat she would, if she was feeling merciful, sell your secrets to your enemies at a discount, stand aside, and watch. If she wasn't feeling merciful, or if she thought you were a threat to someone under her protection...Heaven help you.
    As her car rolled to a stop at the hangar, David stepped forward and opened the rear passenger door. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't seeing a pair of legs, or any other part of Masada emerge from the back seat. He leaned closer to look inside.
    "Lose something?" came her voice from behind his right ear.
    He had enough self control not to jump but it took almost all of his willpower to calmly close the car door and wait for the vehicle to pull away before turning to face her. She was standing less than two feet away, well inside striking distance of either one of the knives he could see strapped to her waist,  looking exotic, composed, and faintly amused.
    "No," he said while calmly straightening his tie. "Nice leather."
    "I assume you're taking about the upholstery?"
    "Actually I was referring to your carry on bag. Gucci?"
    "A clever young man on my staff actually. He'll be going public in a year."
    "Really?" He was close to babbling. He'd had more control of this situation when he played it out in his head earlier. How did she manage it?
    "Aren't you going to invite me on board?" she said nodding her head at the plane.
    "At your convenience, Madam." He followed as she stepped inside. As the door was closed behind him, a twenty dollar bill quietly changed hands as a bet was settled.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 3
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2013, 02:06:35 AM »
Etherfalcon was used to flying. He loved it. He soared
silently over the  streets of Paragon almost nightly and he never got bored with
the sensation of  slipping silently through the air. His combat suit contained
technology which  gave him nearly an hour's worth of uninterrupted flight at a
respectable speed  approaching 80 MPH. More than once he had used that advantage
to hunt like his  namesake and dive into a group of criminals. There wasn't
anything like that  feeling but, since it would have raised far too many
questions if David Drake  arrived for a business meeting by floating down from
the clouds, he used more  traditional methods of travel when not in
costume.

Drake International owned several aircraft for the use of it's
executives  worldwide. There had been more than a few implications made in the
more liberal  media outlets that those aircraft were a sure sign of Drake
International's  corruption and corporate excess. Claims had been made
(anonymously, of course)  that the very existence of those aircraft were
evidence that the company was  guilty of exploiting the common men and women of
planet Earth, and that  somebody, somewhere had to DO SOMETHING about it.

Interestingly enough, a poll sponsored by one of the most
vocal,  anti-corporate groups found that ninety eight percent of those polled
either  accepted corporate jets as a part of the way the world worked or just
didn't  care. Also, in Etherfalcon's mind, a telling fact was the stated margin
of error  was plus or minus two percent. While most of the planet chalked the
whole thing  up to business as usual (and probably a publicity stunt by the
company itself),  David Drake knew that this was another subtle attack. While he
didn't have  definitive proof that the Malta group was behind the whole thing,
like most of  the other problems in his life, it was likely.

A copy of those results resided in a tasteful wooden frame
mounted on the  cabin wall and just above the comfortable leather chair that
David Drake was  occupying some 45,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. Sitting
across the cabin  from him, Madam Masada sipped at an amber colored liquid (20
year single malt,  no ice, noted the data centers of Drake's brain) and leaned
back into her own  chair. She had managed to be patient for the better part of
an hour while he  extolled the virtues of the aircraft, the crew, the custom
carpets and the  hypoallergenic custom metal fittings, but she had just about
reached her  limits.

"...Yes David, I'm certain that being able to exceed the speed
of sound is  a unique and potentially useful feature but is that going to help
us find  Alexis?

Etherfalcon didn't let himself smile. He'd earned back a few
points after  she had flatfooted him at the airfield but you could only poke the
caged tigress  so much before she tore your face off. It was time to get back to
business. He  took a sip of the clear liquid in his own glass (water, filtered,
just slightly  below ambient cabin temperature.)

"My agents in Nassau haven't been able to give me much more
than we already  knew. I know exactly when they left port, how much food and
fuel they had on  board, and how much their visit to the casino the night before
is going to cost  you." He looked up from the thin stack of papers he had picked
up off of the  side table. "Alexis is not a good gambler. Drawing a fourth card
with nineteen  showing? Brave, but absolutely no grasp of basic odds."

"David," the tigress growled faintly. Click, went a bead on
the the mental  abacus where Etherfalcon was keeping score.

"We do have a coded message from her bodyguard saying
'Columbus four' which  I took to mean that they are following Columbus' fourth
route across the sea and  that means they would have been heading for
Hispaniola. That would not be  inconsistent with the GPS data the Katana was
broadcasting."

He flipped to a new page. "I now know the names of the pirates
that tried  to board the Katana, their addresses, and their known associates.
You'll be  pleased to know that they weren't associated with the Council. They
were small  time thugs that decided to try their luck and ended up losing big.
As far as we  know, the Council has no idea where the Katana is."

"So where does that leave us?" asked Madam.

"At 45,000 feet moving South at about 400 MPH."

"David!"

Click, went another bead.

He held his hands up in completely insincere surrender as he
saw Madam  shift her weight in a way that could indicate she was preparing to
stand up and  slap him. "We'll be landing in Nassau in just over an hour. I
intend on making a  brief visit with my chief field officer..."

"You have a chief field officer? Isn't that a bit pretentious
 sounding"

"Considering what he does for my company, and what I pay him,
I thought he  should have something a bit better than 'head flunky.' After that
meeting we'll  head for the marina at the Atlantis where I have a yacht waiting.
I intend to  follow the Katana's course exactly until we reach the point we lost
tracking  information."

"And then?"

Etherfalcon leaned back. "And then we'll see what there is to
see. Until  then, I have a few suggestions for passing the time."

"What? Chess? Checkers? Poker?"

"Real estate. There are some properties on Talos Island I
think you might  be interested in."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 4
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2013, 02:10:05 AM »
    Bosworth St. James started life with an awkward name. Early in his life, it bothered him, as most unusual names tend to do, but not long after he entered school, he realized he had a unique opportunity. Names, he thought, had certain expectations that came along with them. If a person was named John, or Peter, or Mary, or Catherine, then they had an implied set of standards to live up to. Nobody, he realized, had any idea of how a 'Bosworth' should be.
    So he decided to set the standard.
    He'd been fortunate to be of school age in the late 1970's when his nation made a serious push to upgrade their education system. He worked hard in school earning his way into the College of the Bahamas where he studied Business and Law, eventually spending a few years in Florida working on his post graduate degrees. There he came to the attention of Drake International recruiters who were looking for the perfect candidate to head up their new offices in the islands.
    Bosworth was that man.
    He rapidly solidified his position as Drake International's point man in the Bahamas by a combination of honesty, integrity, and a curiously accurate sense of when it was a good idea to question his employer's instructions and when it was a good idea to keep quiet. When your employer calls and says 'I'll be there in three hours, have the Yacht ready. I'll be bringing company," was usually one of those moments that called for discretion.
    Bosworth was no fool.
    As he stood outside Drake International's Nassau offices, Bosworth St. James reviewed the folder of documents that his employer had requested. As usual for David Drake, they were an unusual mix of facts. There was a summary of Bosworth's latest meetings with the Bahamian government concerning the Fracas Effect Energy Manipulation based power plant that would go online in three months (something the Prime Minister still hadn't quite come to comfortable terms with), a collection of information about some local fishermen who went missing, a synopsis of the activities of known criminal organizations in the islands over the last six months, and a list of all unexplained missing vessels over the last fifty years.
    It was the usual things that his employer considered light reading and, as usual, Bosworth had no idea what David Drake was thinking. The CEO was either a genius or a madman and, as Bosworth could see the company car turning the corner onto Bay Street, he knew that it didn't really matter. The company had treated him well over the years and Bosworth was smart enough not to question a good thing..
    A normal day on Bay Street was filled with tourists from Midwestern American towns swarming ashore looking for a bit of 'exotic local color' after days of being aboard the carefully orchestrated fun of the major cruise ships. Since tourism was the Commonwealth's major industry, the average Bahamian took it all in stride. Money would change hands, the tourists would go back to the ships happy and slightly sunburnt, and everyone agreed it was a fair arrangement for all concerned. As the car pulled up in front of him, Bosworth thought about his own days working his way through college in some of the same shops. Things, he thought as he opened the passenger door, never changed.
    By the standards of her adopted home, where it was not unusual to see demons, angels, aliens and energy beings, people made of stone, steel, or molten lava, Madam Masada was considered exotic, but completely normal. In the Bahamas (as personified by native son Bosworth St. James), she was stunning.
    Her pale hair transcended mere 'Platinum Blonde', as it flowed down her back like a waterfall of moonsilver. Her natural skin tone was the exact shade of bronze that cosmetic companies spent billions of dollars trying (and failing) to replicate, and her eyes, normally hidden behind amber toned glasses, were the deep golden brown of Imperial Topaz.
    She was wealthy, mysterious, and seemingly ageless. Even without her preferred heels, Madam stood at a well toned six foot tall. Guesses about her age ranged from late 20's to a very well preserved 50's, and every one was wildly incorrect. Rumors about her filled up dozens of websites and, like the guesses about her age, every single one was wildly wrong. Madam Masada used her subtle intimidation as both sword and shield. It saved time in explaining herself to fools and idiots.
    Madam stepped slowly out of the back seat of the car. She could see the effect she was having on Drake's man and she could think of a dozen ways to take advantage of that if she felt the need to. He wasn't a threat so she decided to use her most effective offense.
    "Thank you. Bosworth was it?"
    "I...um...yes."
    "I wonder, Bosworth, if you could tell me where I could tell me where I could do a little shopping while you speak with Mister Drake?"
    "Um...the...um..." Bosworth's hand swept in a vague arc that could have indicated anything from the Straw Market across the street to Miami over 100 miles away.
    "Thank you. See you in an hour David?" Madam asked and strolled across the street before waiting for an answer.
    David Drake was a merciful man. He walked slowly around the car and stood quietly next to his chief field agent until the older man's breathing returned to normal. They both stood quietly for a moment watching Madam stroll deeper into the market.
    "Do you," Bosworth stammered slightly before beginning again, "do you think she's av-"
`    "Available? Bosworth, I don't think she's available to anybody." David patted his man on the shoulder. "You understand you have no chance at all?" he asked quietly.
    "Yessir."
    "Good Man. I'd hate to see you get hurt, possibly even injured. Don't worry, she does that to everybody the first time"
    "Even you, sir?"
    "Well, maybe everyone but me," said David almost convincingly. "Come on Bosworth, lets look over those files."
    Madam strolled around the Straw Market not really caring about the effect she was having on anyone around her. She'd just spent the better part of three hours trapped in a plane with David Drake and she needed to be anywhere away from the sound of his voice.
    He does it on purpose.  She thought.  He talks endlessly about nothing, then he says something important once he feels he's pushed me too far. Why? What does he gain from it?
    Madam didn't have a good answer for that question. Then again, she never did. David Drake had an obsession with throwing people off balance that had infuriated her for years. He seemed to be incapable of simplicity, structure, or even order. Everything with him was complexity, wheels within wheels, plots and counterplots. She was certain that he had at least three ulterior motives for their trip into the islands that had nothing to do with finding her missing people.
    She let her mind drift into a calmer state as she looked through the stalls of brightly colored fabrics and craftwork. Most of what she saw, she suspected, was there to feed the common tourist perception of what 'island life' was. Garish, crude, faintly embarrassing, and guaranteed to appeal to Americans with more money than sense. A few things, however, were truly interesting and she made a point of collecting contact information from as many of those sellers as possible. She wasn't intending to buy anything on this trip but there were collectors she knew on the mainland that would be willing to pay healthy sums of money for actual local art.
    Sixty three minutes after he first stepped out of the car, David Drake stepped back onto the Bay Street sidewalk. He'd gotten some answers but there were still too many questions. His initial plan for finding the Katana and her crew still seemed to be the one that would provide the best odds for success.
    He scanned the street and his mind subconsciously noted and filed the threats in his immediate area. Other than three pickpockets who were busy watching each other and several people in various stages of intoxication, there wasn't anyone that warranted his full attention. For the moment, he allowed himself to relax.
    Five minutes later, three things caught his attention simultaneously. The first was the approach of his chief field agent from the doorway behind him, the second was Masada's appearance from the Straw Market, and the third was a group of five men who were trying just a little to hard to look like they were not following her.
    "Mister Drake I-" started Bosworth before David hushed him and pointed across the street. The five men had varied their pace and direction just enough that they would all reach a point surrounding Masada at the same time.
    "Mister Drake they-" said Bosworth as he saw what was about to happen. He started to reach into his coat when David's arm reached across and barred him from stepping forward.
    "Easy, Bosworth. The lady knows what she is doing." David Drake was grinning and enjoying his employee's discomfort. The show was about to begin.
    She'd spotted the first of the men twenty minutes before and kept him at the edge of her awareness. She'd gone about her business as he oh-so-cleverly signaled his partners and directed them into position. She altered her own course back to the main street. It was far too crowded inside the market for what she knew was coming.
    Out in the open street her awareness shifted as she took in multiple facts all at once. She could see five men moving to encircle her, none of them armed with anything more dangerous than short batons made of pale wood. The sawed off handle of something, she supposed. She could also see Drake and his man Bosworth watching from across the street. Drake was smiling, his man was looking shocked and might have been contemplating being chivalrous if Drake weren't holding him in place.
    Good, she wouldn't have to worry about hurting him.
    She picked her spot and stopped to wait while the thugs finished springing their elaborate trap. She tried not to sigh as they took forever to perform the simple act of making a circle around a person who was standing still. She'd already slipped a pair of hand sized, metal cased objects from her pockets and had her fingers ready on the raised switches on their sides. As soon as the fools stopped being clever, she could get this over with.
    The lead thug smiled. He was about to speak. It would probably be a threat or perhaps a bit of charm to throw the 'helpless rich tourist' off guard. Masada didn't care. As his lips started to move, Masada's fingers pressed down on the raised switches simultaneously extending and electrifying the eighteen inch wands in her hands.
    Masada took a sideways step which began a pirouette drawing the end of her right wand across one throat and the tip of her left into solid contact with a nerve cluster in a chest. The two men struck dropped bonelessly as the electricity cut off their voluntary muscles.
    A third thug managed to react with a wild swing which Masada simply ducked under and drew both wands across the junction of hips and waist. A fourth thug tried to take advantage of her maneuver and strike from behind only to meet the tip of a wand coming up from below and impacting under each arm.
    Whatever word it was that the leader had decided to start with, it went completely unsaid. As he felt the sting of the electricity and the stutter of his heart, his last conscious thought was that a pair of dispassionate golden eyes were telling him, in no uncertain terms, how much of an idiot he was.
    Time returned to normal with the sound of everyday street noises and the sound of a single pair of hands clapping. Drake was approaching from across the street.
    "Feel better?" he asked once he was close enough.
    She did, but she wasn't going to let him try to claim credit. Madam waved a still sparking wand under his nose, "Tell me you didn't set that up."
    "I like my people far too much to do that to them, " David replied. "Come on, Bosworth will take care of things here. We have a boat to catch."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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  • I didn't leave Paragon City. They threw me out!
Episode 5
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2013, 10:43:13 PM »
The marina faded into the distance as the 150 foot yacht Ripple Effect moved smoothly around the tip of New Providence Island and out into the Caribbean Sea. Standing at the stern, watching the island slip behind them, David Drake let his mind slip into the semi-conscious state he used to let his mind process and file information. His assistant Riley referred to it as 'defragging the mental hard drive' and, in her own irreverent way, she wasn't far from wrong.
    In David Drake's mind, information had shapes and colors. Every fact was irregular and jagged with no symmetry. Details were either muddy dark or painfully bright in hue. By switching his mind into neutral, he could get a sense of how two pieces might fit together, and how the colors blended. When he achieved the right state of mind he was an intuitive genius.
    "There is never a question without an answer," he said to the ocean. "People do not just disappear without a trace. There's always something. A clue, a hint. What do we know?"
    "I've always found Chardonnay helps induce zen states," said Masada's voice from behind him. It wasn't the sound of her voice that snapped David back into reality it was her tone of voice. For the first time since he had known her she didn't sound annoyed by something.
    She had a glass of pale wine in each hand and she was leaning against the side of the small helicopter that took up most of the rear deck. She'd taken the time to change from the more formal look she'd started the day with to something more casual.
    "It's California," she said offering him a glass. "I thought you'd prefer this over the French."
    "We didn't have Australian?"
    "Your crew didn't stock it."
    "Hm," he said sipping the wine, "I'll make a note of that."
    "And, speaking of how well this ship is stocked," said Masada gesturing at various boxes, "I find it very hard to believe that you had all of this deep ocean exploration gear ready at a moment's notice."
    "Purely luck. I'm the primary investor in a search and salvage operation that has some very good data on what could be two Spanish treasure ships. Since Ripple Effect is already set up with very good data processing and uplink capabilities, we were going to use her to investigate the sites."
    "What would you need Spanish treasure for," asked Masada with a touch of her normal irritation, "you're already a multi-billionaire."
    David set his glass of wine down on the rail, leaned back and crossed his arms. "Ever since the day we met, you've always assumed the worst about me. I don't care why, but, while we're working this closely together, I need you to at least pretend you trust me." David picked up his glass and drained it in one even swallow.
    "Assuming we find anything at all, my share of any recovered silver, after expenses, which I am completely underwriting by the way, will probably equal less that what my business makes in a single week. Not exactly the kind of reward that the typical greedy corporate executive is looking for." David tilted his head down so that he was looking up at her through his own eyelashes. "I'm more interested in the ships because of their historical value."
    "Late in 1551, records from Havana had both ships fully loaded and heading on a course that would take them first into the area around Nassau then to Hispaniola then across the Atlantic. That is unusual. Unless they were heading to St. Augustine, which wouldn't exist for another twelve years or so, there was no good reason for those ships to head in that direction. It would have been more likely they would have followed the Cuban coast then cut across.They never made port in Hispaniola and were reported missing. Since it was the Caribbean in the 16th century, they were probably lost to pirate activity or an unrecorded hurricane or some other perfectly reasonable explanation, but the fact that two different ships made such an unusual detour made me curious."
    David stopped speaking and slowly stood back to his full height. Masada could see his eyes shifting rapidly back and forth and sliding out of focus. In his mind, jagged edges collided and fused into an impossibly tantalizing hypothesis. His first few steps weren't entirely under unconscious control and he stuttered forward before grabbing Masada's wrist and dragging her behind him down stairs into the hull.
    One flight of stairs and a doorway led to a room with deep carpet, stuffed leather chairs, and an elaborate computer control station taking up most of one wall. David let go of Masada's wrist and pointed at the sofa.
    "You. There. Sit. Hush." His voice was almost mechanical as he walked over and activated the computer controls. Masada, torn between the indignity of being manhandled, the fury of being ordered to do something, and simple confusion, opted to sit in one of the leather armchairs off to one side of the computer station.
    The control stations monitor screens came to life as David started typing commands. One screen was an image of an old text, a second was a computer generated path of some kind, and a third had what looked like a recorded image of a ship from above. A glance at the image of the ship confirmed to Madam that she was looking at her own yacht the Katana.
    "David, what are you.."
    He turned around in his chair and faced her. The look in his eyes had shifted from the slightly irreverent look of David Drake to the raptor's stare of Etherfalcon.
    "Have you ever heard the phrase 'once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a conspiracy?"
    "Yes."
    "Look here." He turned back to the computer. "The document is a record of the planned route of the two Spanish ships. Using that, and some research on ship capabilities at the time, I put together a computer program to extrapolate likeliest course and speed when they went missing. You'll see that on the center monitor. It is, of course all guesswork but, when I add the known coordinates of the Katana just before we lost contact..."
    Two lines had crossed on the center monitor. A highlighted area of the Caribbean glowed a faint red. Madam stared at the screen and tried to come up with some rational reason for what she was being shown. She started to say something when Etherfalcon's voice echoed back over his shoulder.
    "The Katana's route was a common enough one. Thousands of ships use it every year so it could be coincidence, but I find it just a bit odd that the same spot I was planning to go treasure hunting matches up so well with the Katana's last known location."
    "David, that's impossible."
    David Drake laughed. "Have you forgotten who is on board the Katana? If there is one person in the entire world that the improbable could happen to, it's Alexis. There is something about her that just screams 'hello impossible, here I am!' Somehow, she's managed to go missing in the same patch of ocean that could also hold two 500 year old treasure ships that were not where they should have been. Coincidence? Perhaps. But we now have an even more compelling reason to look and, as long as you know where to look, you can always find answers.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 6
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2013, 02:48:50 AM »
David Drake could not hear the sonic pulses being emitted by the six drones operating hundreds of feet below.  He could only watch the results as they were relayed to the monitor screens in his control room. His inner child however, could hear the sharp pings of the the old ASDIC system that helped win the war in the Atlantic and that countless World War Two films made famous. He could almost feel the tense drama of the cat and mouse game as submarine and destroyer faced off against each other. It was foolishness, but what fun was it to have a small private fleet of submersibles if you couldn't play with them?
    The drones were experimental models designed for up to 12 hours of independent operation. They could be modified for a variety of undersea work including mapping, search and rescue, geological survey, and even aquafarming. Drake Industries would be putting the drones on the market in another year or two but, for now, they gave the Ripple Effect superior undersea senses.
    Since they had been deployed six hours earlier, the drones ran through their pre-programmed search patterns creating an extremely accurate map of the ocean floor around the Katana's last known position. David had them working in a slowly expanding circle, knowing that ships did not always sink in straight lines. He kept part of his attention on the monitor screens devoted to the drones while he sat on one of the nearby couches, reviewing data on a slimline laptop.
    Masada had gone back upstairs after the first two hours with a barely patient request that he call her as soon as he had any information. A glance at the small window in the top right hand corner of his screen, showed her exactly where she had been for the last four hours; in her suite, working on her own laptop. David knew that he could, if he wanted, hack into that laptop and see exactly what she was doing.
    It was a poor idea. He decided against it.
    If he was thinking thoughts like that, it was time to take a break. The drones would send up an alert if they found anything matching certain parameters (such as those created by a sunken yacht) and his research could wait an hour or so. Food would be the best possible way to pass the time.
    Tucking the laptop under his arm, he walked upstairs to the passenger suites. Masada's suite was directly across the hall from his own. He didn't have any particular need to keep her that close, it was just easier in many respects to place her in the best room on board. He knocked on the door. A simple pattern of three knocks. Nothing cute, nothing humorous, just a simple notification that somebody wanted her attention.
    The door opened after a moment and Madam stepped out into the hall.
    "Care to join me in the kitchen for some food?," asked David.
    "Isn't it supposed to be a Galley?," asked Madam.
    "My boat, my rules. Come on, it's been quite a while since either of us had a good meal and I could use a break. Besides, I have a few ideas I'd like to discuss with you and they'll sound better over food." David started walking down the hall, "Care to make it a date?"
    "A date? David...you..."
    Click, went another bead.
    David didn't stop walking. Even on the soft carpet, he could hear the faint sound of her footsteps behind him. A part of his mind analyzed her pacing and rhythm and calculated the best possible countermoves. Another part of his mind figured the odds of him getting more than ten feet down the hall if he were to casually try to trip her.
    It was another poor idea. He discarded it as well.
    The lights flickered to life as he entered the kitchen. He'd had it designed to professional standards and, with a few necessary safety alterations, it was able to prepare a full multi-course meal at sea for up to twenty people. He rarely used it's full capabilities. He had, in fact, used it twice, both times to gather evidence on local officials who were abusing their authority. For the price of two meals and some unremarkable wine, he had been able to deliver evidence to the State Attorney's office that led to the arrest of several organized crime figures and ended three political careers before their corruption did too much damage.
    David had already opened the second refrigerator when he heard Madam's heels on the tile floor. Without taking his attention off of the cold roast chicken he waved a hand at her around the door.
    "Just go ahead and take whatever looks good to you. The crew keeps this stocked up for me."
    "And what about them?"
    "Who?"
    "The crew? When do you let them eat?"
    David's eyes closed briefly. She seemed incapable of giving him a break. One of these days he'd figure her out.
     "They eat whenever it's most convenient for them. I have standing instructions that they are not to try and plan schedules or meals around me since I tend to work very irregular hours." He stepped back from the refrigerator with a wrapped roast and jars of condiments. He set them down on the small table in the center of the room. "Just because the boss has an unnatural habit of being wide awake at three in the morning, doesn't mean they need to suffer."
    "You're right. David, I'm sorry. I've been..."
    "Worried about your people. I understand," he interrupted. "And, considering how on edge you are, I'd say it's Alexis in particular you're worried about. I've never understood why she's so important to you. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're acting like a panicked mother," He stopped building a sandwich for the moment and made eye contact. "Is there something you've not been telling the rest of us?"
    He saw the slight twitch of her right hand that meant she was trying very hard not to hit him. Interesting that she was touchy about that particular subject.
    "She is not my child," she started stiffly. "My child would never have been let out into the world knowing so little and being able to defend herself so badly. My child wouldn't be so... so..." She waved her hands in front of her trying to find a single word that properly described everything that was wrong with Alexis' worldview. David went back to building his sandwich and waited a moment before offering his suggestion.
    "Clueless?"
    "Yes! Clueless. Exactly! She rushes off into danger without thinking. She has no skills, no training, and nothing more than the blind, naive faith that nothing bad could possibly happen to her."
    "Despite all of the evidence to the contrary," added David as he remembered how close Alexis had come to being at the heart of an Atomic explosion. "But you still haven't answered the question. Why are you so worried about her?"
    "Somebody has to! Because from the first time I saw her I could see that her heart was bigger than her head and it was going to get her killed." Madam stopped and, just for a moment, closed her eyes and let herself feel as old as she was. When she opened them again, she saw David Drake deliberately not looking at her.
    "What about you," she asked him. "Why do you care?"
    "Because, she's an over-caffeinated, red haired, butterfly of chaos. As she flutters around, carefully laid plans come apart at the seams, and I don't think she realizes she's doing it. She's the key to many questions and I need to keep her alive long enough to get the answers. Besides," David paused, "she's a fighter. Completely inept, and hopelessly outclassed, but she doesn't give up."
    Madam speared a slice of beef for her own sandwich and their eyes met. For the first time since they had started working together, they understood each other.
    "So," Madam said after a moment, "what ideas do you have?"
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 7
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2013, 04:53:18 AM »
"No."
    It hadn't taken David long to outline the next steps in his plan. It had taken even less time for Madam to decide that she didn't like it.
    When the Malta group designed the Damocles satellite, or rather, when they stole the plans for the design, they envisioned it as a terror weapon. Able to move freely in orbit, it would be able to place itself over any population center and use the massive particle beam weapon at it's core to vaporize anyone who didn't immediately agree to their demands.
    David Drake had a long history with the Malta group which gave him a fair idea of what those demands would be. Surrender every costumed crimefighter and every other person with even a hint of metahuman ability, turn over all military and law enforcement powers, agree to Malta oversight on all political decisions, sit down, shut up, do as your told.
    As soon as he learned about about Damocles' existence, it became imperative that David, in his heroic persona of Etherfalcon, take action to take the satellite out of Malta's control. Certainly they would have a weapon that could enforce their will, but they failed to consider the small but significant number of organizations whose own plans for world domination replied on the numerous metahumans they employed and who would not be at all willing to agree to Malta's demands. Malta, not being known for their discreet tactics, would use their terror weapon against them or, just as likely, one of the better armed groups (say, for example, Arachnos) would launch a pre-emptive strike that would start a war that would potentially kill millions of innocents.
    Fanatical idiots, in the opinion of Etherfalcon, should not be allowed to possess WMD's. With that as his basic premise, he recruited a group of like minded heroes and led them in a coordinated series of raids which drove Malta off of the satellite, erased all copies of the plans, and eliminated the ground based control systems for it. Using their combined resources, the same group of heroes decommissioned all of the onboard weapons, pushed the satellite farther out into space, and converted it from a tool of terror into a deep space research facility.
    At least, that was the story they told the press.
    The real story was much more complicated. Damocles was just as close to the planet as it had always been, and just as destructive. Thanks to some discreet R&D spending from Drake International, it's already formidable stealth systems had been upgraded so that, to the casual observer (and the not so casual eyes of Malta) Damocles simply wasn't there. Etherfalcon didn't believe in wasting resources. He also didn't trust anyone else to make sure it didn't fall back into the wrong hands.
    "It's perfectly safe," continued David as he turned the screen to face the other end of the table. "The math suggests that a focused energy burst of the same frequency that appeared just before the Katana went missing will duplicate the conditions at the time."
    "And then what?" asked Madam. "You have no guarantee that this is any kind of solution."
    "I know that the Katana isn't anywhere around here. We know that this was it's last known location and it's not anywhere below us.  I've had cameras looking at every square inch of ocean around here and is not on the surface. It can't be something as simple as a loss of communication because your crew would have reported in as soon as they reached port. It would be impossible for them to go missing once they made landfall because you have people watching every significant harbor in this area and I know that because my people are watching as well. So, I have to conclude that whatever that energy burst was, it was important. Once you eliminate the impossible..."
    "You," said Madam angrily, "are not Sherlock Holmes. And I am not about to be at ground zero of an orbital particle beam strike because you think it might help. 'Everything in a quarter mile' is what you told Alexis? No."
    "It's the only thing we have that's capable of generating an energy pulse of sufficient strength. And I wouldn't need to use it at full power. Look, I aim it a safe distance away, fire, and get the answers we need."
    "No. I will not allow..."
    Madam was interrupted by a small chime from the laptop and an electronic voice from it's speakers.
    "Charging complete. Initiating pulse in fifteen seconds."
    Madam's eyes shifted from the computer up to David's face just in time to see him staring calmly at her.
    "I knew you'd never agree," said Etherfalcon. "but I wanted to give you the opportunity." He saw her eyes shift back to the laptop. "You could smash it, but it won't stop anything."
    Madam was partway around the table, fighting knives in hand, when the pulse struck the ocean ahead of the Ripple Effect. The beam ionized the air as it passed creating the sound of a massive thunderclap and producing a shockwave that pushed the yacht backward against it's own station keeping engines. Madam stumbled as the deck suddenly rocked under her. She regained her footing just in time to be knocked to the floor by the wave created by the  kinetic energy of the strike.
    The Ripple Effect rocked violently as Etherfalcon dropped to one knee to keep his balance. He'd miscalculated the force equations for the beam and he was hoping that his ship would remain intact. A secondary, but equally important fact, was that Masada would most likely kill him as soon as she got back to her feet. She was not a person that took surprises well. Particularly when those surprises were potentially fatal. Reaching into his back pocket, Etherfalcon pulled out a small, flesh colored adhesive patch and, with a swift motion, applied it to the side of her neck.
    Madam's eyes grew wide for a moment before the anesthetic hit her system. Whatever it was hit her like a freight train. Just before blacking out she heard Etherfalcon's voice.
    "Sorry."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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a brief author's note
« Reply #8 on: December 08, 2013, 10:24:23 PM »
Hi there.
 
Sorry for interrupting but I've had one or two people ask about my schedule for releasing new episodes. I will publish a new episode during the day sunday. what does 'during the day' mean? well, that means some time between 12:01 AM and 11:59 PM Eastern time.
 
It all sort of depends upon my work schedule here in the real world.
 
In any case, the newest episode should be in place by Monday morning.
 
Thanks to those of you following along. Hopefully you are enjoying yourselves. If you have any questions, please send those along through PM and I'll make every attempt to answer them as quickly as I can.
 
Now, back to the story
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 8
« Reply #9 on: December 08, 2013, 10:25:17 PM »
Madam rarely paid attention to her dreams. She knew she had them, everyone did, but they simply were not that important. She didn't need to let her subconscious process information, she had been trained to do that while fully awake and alert. She didn't need them for inspiration, nightmares were something that happened to less disciplined people, they weren't entertaining, or enlightening, they simply were not important. So she ignored them.
    It was somewhat to her surprise that she found herself standing in front of an elaborate scaffold wearing something that would have been far more appropriate for Marie Antoinette. There was a crowd around her, more for the feel of the thing than the necessity she was sure, but they never got too close. The crowd was clearly making room for her to get a good view.
    On the scaffold, which was very solid and wooden, was a single pole. Suspended from that pole, by his left ankle, was a man in tattered blue and silver finery. He was bleeding from a thousand small cuts and the blood was dripping slowly into a silver basin that had been placed beneath him. The basin was connected to a small pump which was pulling the blood out of the pan and piping it back into his body through a tube connected to his ankle.
    She could feel herself waking up. She'd have to remember this one.
    She awoke on the couch in the control room. A quick personal inventory told her that she was clear headed, alert, not in pain, not bound or inhibited in any way, fully armed and extremely annoyed. She rolled off of the couch, drew her knives and looked for somebody, anybody, that she could take her anger out on.
    Sitting across the room from her, just glancing up from her book, was a bespectacled young lady in a very proper dark blue dress with silver grey accents. Her hair was tied back in an efficient bun, and as she tucked her book under her arm and rose to her feet, Madam could see that her face was partially covered by a matching blue mask.
    "Good evening, Madam. Mr. Drake asked me to watch over you while you recovered. He advised me of the exact chemical and dosage he used on you and advised me that you would we waking up at about this time. I was under instructions to administer the counter agent I've been given if you did not resume consciousness within the next," she paused and looked at her watch, "fifteen minutes. Mr. Drake would like to, once again, apologize for the inconvenience of his actions, although he assures you it was in the best interest of all concerned."
    "Kenna?" Madam recognized the voice as belonging to a member of the crew she had met briefly, somebody Drake had referred to as 'legal consultant at large.' That annoyingly clever man had left her with someone she had no right taking out her frustrations on.
    "Yes Madam," Kenna said, her voice changing from a legal tone to one far more human. "How are you doing? Do you need anything? Mr. Drake said you would be fine but..."
    "But Mr. Drake never tells anyone the entire truth. I know. Thank you Kenna, I'm fine. Where is he?"
    "On the rear deck, taking some instrument readings. A lot of things have happened while you were asleep and I think it would be better if he explained it all. I only understood about half of what he was saying and I know I'll only get it all backward. Whenever you're ready I'll take you to him."
    "I'm ready now."
    "Yes, Madam." Kenna set her book down on the chair and straightened out the creases in her dress. Kenna crossed the room in a few short steps and paused as she reached for the handle to open the door. "Madam?"
    "Yes?"
    "You do realize you still have knives in your hand?"
    "Yes."
    Kenna paused for a moment trying to think of the best way to respond to that. There wasn't one. This was obviously something that her employer was going to have to work out for himself. Being a twenty five year old, self-professed, bookworm with a newly minted degree in corporate law wasn't going to do her any good in this situation. She turned the handle and swung the door inward.
    "After you, Madam."
    David Drake was standing on a small crate at the stern of ship when Madam stalked out onto the deck, Kenna three nervous steps behind her.
    "Mister..." Kenna started to say.
    "Drake!" Madam shouted. Madam took two steps forward and Kenna took two steps back. David stepped down from the crate and walked calmly across the deck. His mind had already analyzed Masada's posture, position, stride, and the fact that she had two eighteen inch fighting knives in her hands. A dozen scenarios and defensive moves presented themselves for his consideration. He let her close in waiting until she was in the perfect position for what would be his most powerful disarming move. Her eyes narrowed and her knees flexed, If she followed her established fighting pattern, in another step she would spring. He stood calmly, hands held loosely at his side. He could see her tendons flex, it was time.
    "If you'll let me explain," was all he had time for before she lunged forward to land a solid punch to his midsection. A charm offensive was obviously the wrong choice in this situation. He should have known better.
    Even with the armored vest he'd put on under his shirt, she'd hit hard enough to double him over. His reaction time was faster than any normal human being but he wasn't fast enough to stop her as he felt her knee drive upward into his forehead and one her knives stop just millimeters from piercing the hollow of his jaw and driving upward into his brain.
    "Lie, deceive, creatively interpret the facts, omit details, or do anything else clever that needlessly endangers the life of anyone else on this ship other than yourself, and I swear that your last few minutes of life will be filled with the pain you truly deserve. Am I understood or does that twisting, lying, malformed lump of diseased matter you call a brain, need an even clearer explanation?" Madam's words were hissed into David's face and were barely louder than the sounds of the ocean around them.
    A hundred countermoves presented themselves but, unfortunately, none of them gave him a good way to avoid having a knife thrust through the top of his skull. He'd underestimated Masada badly.
    "I, um, apologize. I acted thoughtlessly and you are completely justified in your anger. If I may, though," Drake paused, trying to decide if his next words would get him killed or not. Probably, but if he had only one last action on Earth, it would be a victory. "I was right," he said and raised his right arm to point at an object on the far side of the deck.
    Madam turned her head to look at the small inflatable boat that hadn't been there before. Drake took the opening and quickly extracted himself from the inevitable knife strike. He calmly moved a few steps closer to the inflatable taking advantage of the fact that the same motion moved him several steps from Masada.
    "There is a severed tow line at the front so we know that somebody tied it to something. That implies that at least one member of the crew made it here alive and that there was something to tie it to. The markings on the boat match up with what we knew was onboard the Katana. Also," he said holding up a small rectangular box "we found this inside."
    The box was rectangular, black with gold inlay, and about twenty inches long. It had a series of lights along one edge. One of them, a green light, was glowing softly. Madam recognized the box. It was a one-of-a kind device created by a hero named Stalemate.
    "If I'm not wrong," said David. "that's Alexis' reset button. She has it with her every time she goes somewhere more dangerous than the grocery store. That alone is enough evidence to prove that the Katana was here."
    "Where is here, exactly?"
    David started pacing. Not too far, because he wanted to stay out Madam's reach for a bit longer, but far enough to make it look like he wasn't just fidgeting. "We've lost touch with all global communication devices so we are either in a different time or reality. I'm assuming a different time since everything else we know matches our reality. I have the helicopter up now looking for land or anything else of interest. I also have the crew monitoring the ship's radar for similar reasons. They will inform me as soon as they find anything worth knowing. Thanks to basic navigation tools, we know that we are in the same rough latitude and longitude as where we started."
    "In other words, David, you have no idea where we are."
    "Well...no."
    "Good, " said Madam illustrating the point with one of her knives. "You're remembering to be honest."
    David had a clever reply ready but his pilot's voice over his portable radio interrupted before he could use it. David put on a headset and pulled the microphone into position. He spoke for a moment and then switched over to a new channel. A moment later the Ripple Effect's engines roared to life and the yacht started forward.
    "My pilot has spotted an island a few miles away which should give us a better idea of where Alexis is. We're heading there now."
    "How do you know that this random island has anything to do with Alexis?"
    David Drake smiled. He loved the rare moments like this where he could Masada off guard. "It's a mysterious island and it looks like it's been on fire. Who else could it be?"
« Last Edit: December 22, 2013, 05:16:08 AM by JWBullfrog »
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 9
« Reply #10 on: December 16, 2013, 01:49:59 AM »
  From the deck of the Ripple Effect, the island looked like any other in the Caribbean; provided that the observer made allowances for the fact that it looked like it had hosted a small war. Columns of smoke rose from various locations around the island's highest point and there were ragged spots in the tree line that suggested that something (or someone, thought David Drake) had left a trail of destruction behind her. He knew it wasn't Alexis. It was certain she was involved somehow, but she simply didn't possess the capability to burn a jungle to the ground.
    David stopped and pondered that thought for a moment before amending it to 'probably didn't'.
    He was more certain of her bodyguard's capabilities, however. Masada had sent Caridad, her own personal bodyguard, along with Alexis when she needed to get out of Paragon City for her own safety. Caridad was a living laser. As long as she had a strong enough source of UV radiation (your average clear day in the tropics, for example) she was capable of reducing a man-sized target to ash. The tactical part of his mind added that information to his existing data pool concerning the island and provided him with the simple and unmistakable conclusion that his intuition was, once again, right.
    His crew had been busy for the last hour. The helicopter had returned and had been refueled. It would be used for scouting and support. The pilot had already spotted a beach that would make a good landing spot and base camp for a pair of small boats that would take David, Masada, and a few of the combat and medically certified crew ashore in case they were needed.
    David had assumed his usual position in the center of the activity. Once he had given instructions to the crew, he knew that he would just have to stand back and be available for questions. Every single person on the yacht was an expert in their particular field, and a good manager, remembered David from one of his father's earliest lessons, knew when to stay out of his people's way.
    "Are we ready?" asked Madam as she stepped up beside him. She had calmed down quite a bit over the last hour and was back to her usual state of perpetual annoyance. She had changed clothing again and her current outfit was a restyled variation of the one David had seen her wearing on the rare occasions when she took a personal interest in Paragon city's criminal affairs. The white and gold patterned underlayer was a variation on the suits worn by Olympic skiers. It allowed for freedom of motion while providing some impact protection in the form of STF, or Shear Thickening Fluid. The force from blows would be spread over as much surface area as possible in a manner not too different from bullet proof vests. As additional protection, Madam had also donned an ornate breastplate and bracers of a dark bronze material that looked too solid to be Kevlar, but didn't look heavy enough to be metal. He'd seen her shrug off both kinetic and energy attacks while wearing it so he was eager to get a sample for study. The attempt, he reminded himself, would be far more trouble than it was worth.
    His own battlesuit was waiting in standby mode in a nearby fold of time/space. All it would take would be a cybernetic command to cover himself in the high tech, dark blue and silver masterpiece that had become his trademark. Without his suit, he was better trained and more highly skilled than 99% of humanity. With the suit augmenting his abilities, he became truly superhuman.
    "The crew is loading the last supplies now," he replied."They'll set up a command post on the beach, while you and I explore inland." He noticed her glare darken as Kenna, his legal aide and one of his medically trained people, climbed down a rope ladder into one of the awaiting boats. "Every one of these people have volunteered and they have strict instructions to return to the yacht at the first sign of trouble." He sighed. "Right now, Madam, I don't need another lecture on endangering innocents. Whether or not you approve of my methods, and you've made your opinion of that very clear, I have been correct so far. If we are going to find your people, I'll need you to continue following my lead. If you are not willing to do that, I'll ask you to stay behind." He paused for a moment. When no obvious protest was made, he gestured at the boats, "Shall we go?"
    The boats moved steadily away from the Ripple Effect. Overhead, the helicopter was making slow orbits of the bay and, in the privacy of his own thoughts, David Drake's inner child was loving every second of it.
    It took Richard Wagner 26 years to write the music for the four full length operas of the Ring Cycle. It took Hollywood just under five minutes to turn it into the soundtrack for anything to do with helicopters. David could hear the roar of the rockets and the chatter of machine guns as he and his crew stormed the beaches of Normandy alongside the First Hero Brigade and the original Freedom Phalanx. He could see himself leaping over the fortresses of the Atlantic wall and taking the fight to the greatest threat the free world had ever known...
    "We're getting close to shore, you might want to stop daydreaming and change clothes now, " said Madam from her seat beside him.
    "I, um, can't do that here, my people, they don't...," David Drake was still a firm believer in the romantic idea of the heroic secret identity. El Zorro, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Robin Hood, all of the greats had one. It paid to have only a few people know your secret. Your enemies could not target you through those close to you, you could have a normal life from time to time, you could...
    "Sir," said Kenna from behind him,"in a certain number of positions within the company, we are required to sign  a fairly binding 'non disclosure' agreement. Even if, in the highly unlikely circumstance we saw our employer do something that he couldn't have possibly done, for example: taking on the persona of a costumed vigilante, we would be legally bound not to speak about it to any outside party for fear of legal prosecution. Now, I am not certain about the viability of such an agreement in cases of temporal or dimensional displacement, an argument could be made either way, but, my personal opinion as your legal representative is to stop wasting time and suit up before something blows your head off."
    For five seconds, the only sounds that could be heard were those of the motor and the surf itself. Then, Masada's laughter rang out warm and low and deep. "Girl," she said after several seconds, "if you ever decide to change careers, I'll offer you six figures to start. David," she said almost playfully, "never argue with your lawyer."
« Last Edit: December 22, 2013, 05:15:54 AM by JWBullfrog »
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 10
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2013, 05:15:38 AM »
  note: oops, just noticed my errors on episode numbering. I should have that fixed now- JWB



  In the modern world, it was rare to find a beach that wasn't groomed, replenished, tended, littered, and otherwise covered with signs of humanity. The beach Madam found herself standing on was, other than several footprints, completely unspoiled and more than a little alien feeling.

    "I know what I said earlier Kenna, but I'm changing plans, " Etherfalcon was saying behind her. "I want you all to return to the ship and wait for me to contact you."

    "But sir, that would constitute an unreasonable risk and I cannot, as your legal representative..."

    Etherfalcon raised a blue and silver gloved hand to stop the flow of legalese before she got on a roll. In his experience, it was never good to let a lawyer speak too long. There was always the danger that you'd agree with whatever they said simply to make them stop.

    "Kenna, if there is anything on this island that Madam and I cannot handle, it would place you and the rest of the crew in extreme danger. I'm not going take that risk. As your employer, I am instructing you to return to the ship."

    "Yes, Mr. Drake," Kenna said in a moderate, proper, and completely unconvincing tone of voice.

    Etherfalcon leaned closer so that his voice would not carry further than the two of them. "Thank you for your concern. You'll have plenty of chances to protect my interests later. Right now, do as I ask."

    Madam watched Etherfalcon stand his ground while the young brunette and the rest of the crew boarded the boats and headed back out to the yacht waiting offshore. She waited until the boats were well away before she walked back to her blue and silver clad partner.

    "She thinks she's in love with you, you know."

    Etherfalcon sighed. "It's a very literal case of hero worship. She'll get over it. Besides, "he said after a moment when he saw Madam still giving him an appraising look, "she's quite a bit younger than I am, a lot more innocent, and, even if I were the kind of man that would take advantage of a situation like that, I know better. I just do not need the kind of complications that encouraging her would bring.

    I plan on making her Riley's assistant once we get back, and if a week or two of that doesn't cure her of any romantic notions toward me, nothing will. So," he said in a quick change of subject,"I know you've been looking things over for the last few minutes. What have you got?"

    "Signs of something being dragged on and off the beach. Probably the boat. Several footprints that are scuffed and disorganized. At least three clear sets of footprints, two very much human and one... not. All of them converge up there near the treeline."

    Etherfalcon examined the footprints on the short walk up the beach. "Let's see, one set of footprints comes from a female about five and a half feet tall, wearing athletic shoes size eight. Another is from a female just over six foot tall wearing low heel boots."

    "Alexis and Caridad," Madam said. "Alexis wears running shoes wherever she goes, even if they are not appropriate, and Caridad prefers heels," Madam looked briefly pained. "Particularly if they are not appropriate. And here," she said pointing to a small piece of rope tied to a tree, "That's the same kind of rope on the Katana's boat."

    "Looks like it was more pulled apart than cut," said Etherfalcon. He stared at the tied section for a moment more. "Probably because they couldn't untie the knot. It's a mess."

    "Alexis," said Madam in a tone of voice that managed to convey relief, compassion, annoyance, and the never ending sense of frustration that came from knowing Alexis Alexander. "She probably said something like 'that's good enough' and went running off to wherever she went to."

    "Uphill and into the forest seems to be where the tracks lead, and they also lead toward the fires," said Etherfalcon, keeping the dynamics of dealing with Alexis Alexander firmly in mind. "It's that third set of clear tracks that worry me. They're round, oddly spaced and came from something very heavy. They seem to come from a different section of the treeline over to the boat, then pulled it free which suggests someone or something with a lot of strength, then followed the girls inland."

    "Some kind of animal?"

    "Not likely. It's stride suggests something bipedal and no two legged animal I've ever heard of makes prints like that."

    Madam had already started uphill forcing Etherfalcon to jog a few paces to keep up. Once he drew even they matched strides and all but marched up the hill. The altimeter built into Etherfalcon's suit showed a height of two hundred feet above sea level before they reached a clearing at the top of the hill. A clearing that looked like a combat zone.

    Familiar patterns and shapes flashed across Etherfalcon's enhanced sensory. Gouges in the turf from high velocity ammunition that went astray, oddly random blast patterns from small explosives, burn patterns suggesting high energy emissions, scorched grass with unusual green patches and, the far too familiar traces of human blood. Analysis took microseconds and options were presented. Etherfalcon did not like what he was seeing.

    "Council mag rifles. But they were firing randomly, almost like they were cooking off. Same thing with the explosives. Whatever hit them burned so fast and hot they had no chance to run.

    "Caridad," said Madam with no trace of remorse. "I've seen her do it in live fire exercises. If she has enough time, she can build up a single big burst that scorches everything within about 100 yards of her." She looked around, "that's just about the size of this clearing."

    "So they were cornered, up against the edge of the cliff if I'm reading the blast marks right, "said Etherfalcon as he slowly paced the clearing letting his brain sort through the information he was getting, "Caridad nukes the place then, what, they jump off the cliff?"

    "Well, Caridad can fly. Don't ask how, probably more by sheer force of will than anything. But that blast leaves her pretty drained for a minute or two. I don't think she'd be up to a soft landing."

    "Unless Alexis had a parachute."

    "Where would she have gotten... never mind. Where are the bodies, though?"

    "Good point. Somebody has cleaned up around here. Find them and we'll find answers."

    "And if we find the girls are dead?" asked Madam.

    Etherfalcon did not miss the feral tone of the question. "If that is the case, then we'll find out who is responsible and very clearly explain their mistake to them."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 11
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2013, 04:03:10 AM »
 In the underground heart of the island, there was chaos. Two hours earlier a small group of superpowered individuals had somehow discovered the island facility which should have been, by all estimations, impossible, and launched an assault that did cosmetic but notable damage. Although the initial assault had been repelled and a prisoner taken, a follow-up attack had been launched that had thrown the entire facility into disarray.
 
    The prison wing was a wreck and the the time portal had almost been lost. A significant number of soldiers had been either killed or wounded and the allied forces of the Banished Pantheon had been all but eliminated. If it had not been for the fast response of Archon Morgan and his team, the base and all of the Council's investment in it might have been lost.

    The Archon had captured the invaders and had taken them topside to be executed. Unfortunately the Archon, and almost the entire command team had been killed when the intruders detonated an undetected and extremely powerful explosive device. Only a few survived the blast, and the job of restoring operations had fallen to Group Leader Orst. He had very few men left to contain the damage. Fires were still being fought on levels 3, 10, and 11, one or more infiltrators were still loose in the facility, and his 'allies' were getting more and more restless. The day had become nothing more than a never ending series of disasters.

     Orst was a good soldier. He was a capable combat leader and recruiter and even if he never fully embraced the Council's mission to show humanity their version of the proper way into the future, he was professional enough not to let it show. His grandfather had faced a similar position and had survived by obeying his orders to the letter, but no farther. Orst had learned from his grandfather's example but he was not at all prepared for being in the position of explaining the details of Temporal Mechanics to an unwashed savage wearing little more than a bamboo loincloth.

    "If you would open the gateway, I could bring back more of my brothers," growled the Banished Pantheon shaman. "We could ensure safety while you repair the machines. Yes?" None of the Shamans were pleasant, but Orst had taken a particular dislike to this one. He called himself Brother Ma'oun and he was as disgusting a human being as Orst could imagine. His hair and body were covered in something that Orst tried not to think about although, by the smell, it had something to do with a rotting barnyard. When he spoke it was more the grunting of a beast than the words of a man. It all was supposed to be connected to the mystical power he commanded. Orst simply wished the man would go somewhere else and let the air clear.

    "I have explained this before Brother Ma'oun," Orst began again patiently, "the time portal control systems are unreliable. It will take some time to repair them. In addition, the reactors that power it are fluctuating wildly. It is hard enough to send a person through time even with equipment in proper working order. If I were to try now, there is a very good chance that you and I and everything on this island would be shredded into very small pieces, sucked through the portal and flung randomly through time. While your gods may protect you from that fate, I am not willing to take that chance. I shall inform you when we are able to begin again."

    Orst turned and walked away, taking care not to breathe to deeply until he was well away from the savage. This whole operation had been a failure from the beginning. The orders were insane. An Archon named DiDraghi had convinced the central command that acts of extreme random destruction would throw society into such disorder that the Council would be seen as the only logical choice for order. Somehow that had included an alliance with the Banished Pantheon to travel back in time, hijack people from the past, turn them into undead shock troops, and send those forward in time to overrun Astoria.

    Orst tried not to think about the crews of those two Spanish ships who had been unfortunate to be close enough to be lured in by Pantheon shamans only to have their souls ripped out to feed perverse gods. Nor did he try to think of the hundreds of island natives that had been sacrificed and turned into empty husks. He did think carefully about the 85 men still under his command and the fifty or so Pantheon cultists that remained. Unless he was very careful, his men would become the next wave of 'reinforcements.'

    To keep the reactors from going critical, Group Leader Orst had ordered all corridor lighting reduced to fifty percent. It made seeing anything in the already gloomy base difficult but Orst was fairly certain that nobody under his command had red hair, and he was absolutely certain that none of them were female. He drew his side arm. One of the infiltrators from earlier had returned.

    He followed her around the corner, certain that she hadn't seen him. That was unfortunate for her. Orst was a veteran of the streets of the Rogue Isles and he knew the rules of dealing with superhumans. Shoot first, shoot straight, do not give them any chance to react.

    His sidearm was a standard model Council heavy pistol using a compact magnetic accelerator to fire a steel jacketed, .475 caliber round with a hardened tungsten core. It was a bit heavier than a standard pistol of it's caliber but, since it didn't use gunpowder, it was actually easier to handle. Recoil was almost completely eliminated and it was very easy to put multiple shots on target. In many parts of the world, the weapon would be far too powerful for using on anything lighter than an armored vehicle. In the Rogue Isles, it was usually just enough to get people's attention.

    He raised the pistol to firing position. He used a well braced two handed grip; none of that one handed, sideways, nonsense that amateurs thought made them look tougher. He made sure he had his sights set on her center of mass. Headshots, as he told his soldiers, failed more often than not. Besides, even a glancing shot with an armor piercing round was usually fatal. He centered himself, took a smooth breath and started an even pull on the trigger.

    The bullet left the barrel at just under three times the speed of sound and crossed the distance to his target in less than a second. The kinetic energy of the shot threw her into the far wall where she collapsed and lay still. Orst moved forward, pistol ahead of him, to confirm the kill.
 
    Orst never saw the pistol leave his hand, he only felt the sharp pain of three solid blows driving him into unconsciousness. Just before blacking out he heard two voices: a male voice saying 'Something's not right here' and a female voice right next to his ear saying ' if she dies you'll wish you had as well."

    His last conscious thought was " I see a way out, Grandfather."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 12
« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2014, 02:34:53 AM »
Etherfalcon had stepped into the hall moments after the Council soldier had raised his gun. His suit's enhanced sensory fed him information at inhuman speeds. One soldier, sidearm (with a submenu for type and capabilities of the weapon), notes on stance, training, suppositions of age and experience of the shooter, and a list of possible actions. He didn't really need the suggestions. A council soldier with a drawn weapon had a very simple set of actions associated with it: disarm, disable, incapacitate. He had already started forward when another set of data flashed into his awareness: one target, female, red hair, approximately five and a half foot, unaware. He shifted his balance so that, instead of hitting the soldier, he would use his body armor to intercept the bullet.

    As fast as he was, he was not fast enough to put himself in harm's way before the soldier fired. The bullet left the barrel with the familiar hissing crack that all Council weaponry used. His suit recorded the speed and angle of the bullet, extrapolated mass and potential force and presented a list of possible traumas the target could experience. It all served to remind him that he couldn't possibly get there in time.

    Madam Masada, who had rounded the corner slightly behind Etherfalcon, heard the crack of the gun and saw a redheaded female drop to the ground. Her options narrowed to a list of one: kill.

    Her first blow brought the hilt of her right hand knife down on the gunman's hand, forcing him to drop his weapon. Her left leg pushed off the ground giving her the power to drive her knee into the soldier's midsection. As he folded in half, she brought both hilts down on the back of the soldier's head, stunning him. She would have reversed her knives and severed both the Carotid artery and the Jugular vein if it weren't for Etherfalcon's voice saying 'Something's not right here.' The soldier had earned a brief reprieve. "If she dies, you'll wish you had as well," she hissed into his ear.

    Etherfalcon knelt down over the victim. She was breathing and there was no sign of blood. On the ground next to her was a single bullet looking exactly like it had been pulled from its casing and set gently on the ground.

    "Hold on, we need him alive," Etherfalcon called back over his shoulder. "I don't know who this is, but it isn't Alexis."

    "Don't tell me she came back," said a slightly muffled and annoyed sounding voice voice from the floor. "After all the trouble I went through to get her out of here." The redhead groaned softly and levered herself unto her knees. "I couldn't have made the instructions any clearer. Think of home. It's not that hard, but knowing her she let her mind wander and now she's somewhere on the Tethys sea fighting dinosaurs."

    She wrapped her arms around her head and rocked slowly back on her heels. Her eyes were closed as she bent forward at the waist. "I'm going to ache for a month, literally." she said distractedly. "Tempo-Kinetic shielding spreading force over time always sounds like a good idea until you get hit. I don't suppose you have any Aspirin on you, do you? No? I'll just have to suffer for a bit then. Anyway," she said as she braced her hands against the wall and levered herself to her feet. "I suppose introductions are in order. Doctor Zandra Alexander-Reyalde, Professor of Time and Related Studies at New Paragon University. Thank you for the save but I really must insist that you get far away from this island as quickly as possible."

    "I'm afraid we can't do that, we're here on a rescue mission and..." Etherfalcon's speech stopped in mid sentence as the redhead's eyes snapped open and widened into a shocked stare. She spun around until her back was to the wall then she pointed, first at Etherfalcon and then at Madam. For a few moments her mouth moved but no sound came out.

    Etherfalcon had seen this before. It was an unavoidable fact that once you became a well known crimefighter in Paragon City, you developed a fanbase. Most of the time it was a minor annoyance with the autographs and photographs, the endorsement and book offers, the crowds and the everpresent concern that people would put themselves in danger just to watch a hero work. You got used to it. Etherfalcon figured he had about thirty seconds before she pulled herself together enough to speak and then it would be the same old round of 'wow I can't believe it, and 'you're my favorite.'

    "NO! Nononononono!," Zandra growled as she spun on her heel and poked her finger into Etherfalcon's chest. "I do not need this now. By all that's Holy, can't people just, for once, stay where they're supposed to be instead of causing trouble?"

    This was not going as Etherfalcon expected.

    "This is becoming, no forget that, HAS become the worst day of my life. First meeting HER, which is flirting with a serious paradox, and then, oh and I really should have seen this coming but I was too busy, HE, no," she looked over at Madam, "THEY show up." The redhead threw up her hands in frustration and looked at the ceiling, "what have I possibly done to you? Huh? Have I really been that bad? Couldn't you have given me a more subtle hint? A rain of frogs, perhaps?"

    "Um, miss?"

    Zandra held up a hand to stop whatever the man in blue and silver was going to say. "Hush, I've got a rant going here and I don't need you interrupting. Right? Good. Anyway, "she turned to address Madam who had adopted a relaxed pose and a faint smile "I cannot tell how much of an honor it is to meet you Madam and I have a million and one questions I'd like to ask but, right now, I need you and him to go back to your home time."

    "Can't," Madam said. "unless you have a spare particle beam lying around."

    "Particle beam?" the redhead stammered for a moment. "You...but that's insane. Effective and a clever way to get around the power requirements provided that you have a large enough particle beam and stable enough instability to work on... you came through the Triangle didn't you? You'd have to, it's the closest one ... but it's a completely insane solution. You'd have to be a madman to even try it." The redhead slowly turned her head to look first at Etherfalcon then back to Madam.

    "It was his idea wasn't it?"

    Madam smiled.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 13
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2014, 02:33:51 AM »
 In her line of work, Zandra had learned to think on her feet. Not her teaching profession, even though you did have to keep on your toes with precocious first year Chronology majors or else you had yet another plague of dinosaurs to deal with, but when your other job was helping to make sure that history actually matched the history textbooks, flexibility of thought was an asset.

     "I don't have time for long explanations," Zandra began. "Actually I do and I don't, but it's much easier to say that I don't just to avoid telling you that there's things I can't tell you. Right? Ok? Good. Anyway, if you can help me get back to the room where the time portal is, I can reprogram it into a massive feedback loop that will pull it and this entire island out of the timestream."

    Zandra started a choppy pacing. It didn't help her think, it was just something to do with her body while her brain worked. It was a habit that annoyed her superiors, but it wasn't like they were any better.

 Three steps, pause, two steps, pause, turn, three steps...

     "I also have to figure out a way to get you back to your proper time. I suppose I can use the portal itself to send you home before I make it eat itself. The math is a bit tricky but that should work."

    "It's a bit more complicated than that," said Etherfalcon.

    Zandra stopped pacing and looked at him. "Sure, why shouldn't it be? Ok, how?"

    "My yacht and it's crew are sitting offshore."

    "Ok, more details to worry about." Zandra's hands made small passes through the air as though she were trying and discarding ideas. There were a dozen reliable ways to travel through time and every single one of them was complicated.

    "I suppose, if we could get your people closer, I could extend the time field to cover them as well. But that would require a lot of power and I've been doing what I can to sabotage that for the last hour or so. OK, so we need to get to the power plant first..."

    "You shouldn't need to go that far," said Group Leader Orst from the floor. He tried to stand but a kick to the back of his knees from Madam dropped him back to the ground. Her knives had never left her hands and, from her commanding position over him, there were a half dozen easy killing moves.

    "Hold on a moment please Madam," said Zandra as she walked over and knelt down by the Council soldier.

    "He was trying to kill you. Why should I let him live?" asked Madam.

    "Because I'm not dead and because he surrendered. You did surrender didn't you? "she said to Orst. "I suggest the next word out of your mouth be yes, unless you've got some really good last words worked up that you're literally dying to use."

    Orst knew his training said never to surrender to anyone, particularly a woman,but what the Council wanted wasn't important to him anymore. A slim chance at redemption stood before him and he wasn't going to let it pass.

    "Yes, I surrender. No conditions, no demands. I will not oppose you and I will assist you in any way you wish. I have detailed knowlege of this facilty and access to all the information in the computers." Orst climbed to his feet, straightened his uniform, and stood straight and tall as he addressed his new commanding officer. "What do you require from me?"

    Zandra looked at him seriously for a moment before replying. "If you can avoid saluting, I think we'll get along just fine. In the mean time, what did you mean about not needing to go that far.?"

    "The main control room is a short distance away. From there, I can give you access to every system on the island and you should be able to stabilize the power. The only reason we couldn't was because someone, I assume you,  kept damaging things. I can also give you the computer codes to access any information you may need to get your people out safely."

    "And your people will be ok with us just walking in?" asked Etherfalcon.

    "A few will listen to me," replied Orst "at least long enough for you to disable them. The real trouble will come from the Pantheon shamans. They are," he paused looking for the right words, "very dedicated to their cause."

    "That's an interesting way to describe insane cultists," growled Madam.

    "Nothing we haven't seen before," said Etherfalcon, tilting his head to indicate himself and Madam. The Pantheon were a persistent hazard in the streets of Paragon and the Rogue Isles. Arachnos listed them as a 'No Quarter, Kill On Sight" group. The PPD simply tried to keep them bottled up in Astoria the best they could.

    "The longer you can keep them busy, the better." Zandra turned her head to look at Orst, "What about your people who resist?"

    Orst thought for a moment. "I'll ask you to accept their surrender if they give it. Otherwise," he said with a touch of regret, "it's their choice."

    "Alright then. Falcon, Madam, I know perfectly well what you two are capable of so I'll leave the mayhem up to the professionals. We'll wait a few minutes until you get started then slip in and do what needs doing. If you haven't finished before we're clear, I'll send a signal on Etherfalcon's private frequency."

    "I haven't given it to you yet."

    Zandra smiled her best cat-in-the-cream smile. There were advantages to being several years ahead of everyone else.

     "I already know it."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 14
« Reply #15 on: January 20, 2014, 02:26:12 AM »
   On the walk to the control room, Etherfalcon called up the files he had on the Banished Pantheon. Known abilities, fighting styles and weaknesses scrolled past his vision as a second subroutine offered tactical suggestions. A quick glance at Madam out of the corner of his eye started a third subroutine which analyzed her pace, heartbeat, pulse, and compared those to his existing database on her.

    Her heart rate was elevated and her body temperature was slightly above normal. Very slight twitches signaled an increase in Neuro-muscular activity and her breathing had shortened. In any other person, Etherfalcon would have interpreted these signs as a person about to run, screaming, away from the approaching danger, but for Madam, it was like watching a fighter jet waiting to be launched from a catapult.

    He spared a moment to pity anyone who got in her way.

    "How long do you need?" she asked as they stopped a short way down the hall from the room.
 
    "Give me two minutes to find a good starting position. Once the grenades go off, do what you think best," Etherfalcon replied.

    "And you'll be?" she asked.

    "Making them jump at shadows," Etherfalcon smiled, "and staying out of your way." As he stepped away, a mental command brought his suit's stealth systems online. It wasn't true invisibility and it wasn't perfect, but in the dim lighting, it would be good enough.

    The control room was a typical Council design. Multiple levels, catwalks, workstations spread around the room, multiple exits, and far too many blind corners. Etherfalcon had seen the design, or something similar, hundreds of times before. He often wondered if the Council had ever heard of the idea of design efficiency. Maybe, he thought, if they'd placed more emphasis on enhanced information flow and less on paranoid compartmentalism, they might actually have taken over the world by now. Still, the same features that made the room a crime against architecture would easily work in his favor.
 
    A quick survey of the room showed him three concentrations of enemies. Near the far end of the room, a grouping of workstations were surrounded by roughly a dozen Council personel. Judging by the way they were dressed, they were most likely technicians. Knowing the Council, they were probably carrying sidearms so they were a threat, but nowhere near his top priority.

    A second group of Council soldiers was behind a low wall to the right of the entrance. There were ten of them gathered together in what was probably some type of security post. Etherfalcon noticed that they were very alert but a bit too highly focused. If they had been doing their jobs properly, he'd never have been able to get into the room, stealth or no, but instead of paying attention to the entrances, they were very preoccupied in watching a group of Pantheon Shamans and zombies closer to the center of the room.

    Etherfalcon already knew there was some tension between the two groups but it was obvious that the soldiers were just waiting for an excuse, any excuse, to start shooting at the shamans. He'd be able to use that. By tackling the Shamans first, Etherfalcon would most likely force the soldiers to hesitate and, considering who he knew would be walking into the room right after him, that would most likely be their death sentence.
     
    Having made the decision to start with the Shamans, his tactical system offered suggestions for beginning the engagement. Fifteen very good options presented themselves for consideration, but he chose an old favorite.

     Flash grenades were always highly distracting way of starting a fight, and the dim lighting would make them even more effective. A quick toss would send four arcing over to the Pantheon and a few seconds after that, their magnesium based charges would ignite, blinding, deafening, and generally disorienting anyone unfortunate enough to be close to them. Being undead, the dozen zombies he saw wouldn't really get the full effect, but it would take their masters out of the fight for a minute or two.

    The secret to success when dealing with the Banished Pantheon was to never give them time to react. Etherfalcon's fighting style was based around that very idea. Hit and run, strike and fade, keep your opponent off balance. Standing still was his last (and worst) option. 

    His initial leap from hiding was hidden by the flash of the grenades. Using both feet he dropped his full weight onto one shaman, driving the cultist to the floor. That flowed into a tumbling roll that took the legs out from under a second and brought him into arm's reach of a third. A palm strike to the sternum staggered the third shaman and cleared enough space for Etherfalcon to get his feet under him. He had their attention but the fight was far from over. It was time to move.

    At the sound of the first explosion, Madam Masada strode calmly into the room. 'Never rush to your death. It will find you soon enough' was a favorite saying of her first weapons instructor. Since Etherfalcon was making enough noise for a dozen people and distracting everybody, she had plenty of time to examine her surroundings.

    A group to her right in Council gray caught her attention by being armed, inattentive, and members of an organization that Madam had more than a small grudge against. It wasn't personal, she lied to herself. It was simply a matter of a ten million dollar bounty that the Council had placed on Alexis' head, simply because she survived their attempts at making her a very unwilling martyr by making her the trigger for an Atomic weapon. That, in Madam's opinion, was completely unacceptable.

     She turned sharply on the ball of her right foot and pushed off with her left. Her stride lengthened into a jog, then into a soaring leap that defied gravity a little longer than it should have. The council soldiers were already distracted by the grenade flashes so they reacted far too late when Masada landed among them.

    Madam's preferred weapons were two eighteen inch fighting knives. More stiletto than Bowie knife, they were lightweight, razor edged, and designed for fast slashing and piercing. The blades took up almost two thirds of the length which, according to another of her instructors, was more than enough length to reach any vital organ in the human body. The two soldiers that happened to be closest to her landing spot learned that lesson all too well as their hearts were stopped by Madam's blades coming up under their ribs.

    Slowly she rose from her landing crouch, effortlessly slid her knives out of the falling corpses, and assessed her situation. Two soldiers down, eight remained.  They were shocked, disorganized, and not prepared for a close quarters fight.

    If they hadn't been Council, she'd have pitied them.
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JWBullfrog

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Episode 15
« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2014, 02:50:17 AM »
       A lightning bolt flashed down on the spot where Etherfalcon's left foot had been a moment before. The Shamans' aim was getting better.

   He'd let himself get overconfident and had forgotten his cardinal rule of combat: movement was safety. Standing still when your opponents had storm clouds at their beck and call was just asking for trouble. His suit was insulated well enough to let him ignore near misses but a direct strike... it was probably best not to find out. He'd have to improve that in the next upgrade.

   It had taken two tries before the cultists had managed to rally their forces but the best they were managing to do was to lose zombies at a slower rate. By staying in motion and altering the direction of his attacks, Etherfalcon was picking the Pantheon troops apart. The zombies had horrible reaction times and the shamans could not redirect them fast enough. Even so, Etherfalcon had to change his tactics slightly. Strikes that were based on strength worked too well against opponents that came apart when you hit them. He had very literally kicked a zombie in half and had almost fallen straight into the arms of another. It had taken a complicated rolling backflip (that would cost him another hundred dollars in chiropractor fees) to avoid being grabbed and crushed.
   
   Three fast steps gave him the momentum to leap upward against the nearest wall, plant his feet, spring backward, grab a zombie by the shoulders and throw it over his own shoulders into the cluster of Shamans. As he fell to the ground and prepared to use the momentum of his roll to cut the legs out from under another zombie, Etherfalcon spared a moment to glance over and check up on Madam.

   He hadn't needed to waste the time.

   Once upon a time he might have had fantasies of coming to her rescue, but those fantasies were long since dead and buried. She'd demonstrated more than once that she could take care of herself and he wasn't about to risk offending her (or worse) by suggesting she couldn't.

   Even in the middle of her own fight, Madam noticed Etherfalcon's theatrics. It was hard not to. As usual he was wasting energy and it was likely he'd need her to finish the fight for him. It wouldn't be the first time, although he'd claim differently.

   She leaned back slightly as a Council soldier swung his rifle at her head. It was an incorrect use of the wrong weapon for the fight he found himself in, but it was all that he had. It simply wasn't enough. Madam's knives slashed across the veins and tendons in his arms, rendering them useless. He staggered away, dropping the rifle. He'd die soon enough if he didn't get assistance. Madam could not care less. She'd already killed or disabled six of the ten soldiers that surrounded her, and the other four were tripping over each other trying to retreat. She'd let them go. Unless they re-engaged with her, they weren't worth wasting the energy on.

   She turned and started walking toward the other fight. It was time to save Etherfalcon from himself.

   Outside of the control room, Zandra walked calmly down the hall with former Group Leader Orst, her new shadow. She'd taken her time checking her remaining equipment, resetting her defenses, and combing her hair; all the while watching Orst out of the corner of her eye. She'd left him plenty of opportunities to take advantage of the situation but he'd not taken any of them. He remained calm and composed but just below the surface she could see the signs of a person who had been handed a pardon and no idea of what to do with it. She'd have to watch him, but she had the feeling that he'd be incredibly useful.

   She'd been asking questions about the Council's time machinery as they walked. Orst was open with his answers.

   "Ok, you've got three small fusion reactors down in the basement. We'll need to make sure those are in sync before we go any further."

   "Yes, Ma'am. the controls for that are on console three."

   "Then we'll need to make sure the portal circuits themselves are intact."

   "You can check the status on console two, Ma'am. Any physical repairs would have to be done in the portal room however."

   "You're using portal tech?"

   "A modified Portal Corps unit, Ma'am. Fairly straightforward."

   "Right. Better than I'd hoped for really. I helped rebuild one of those for an exhibition a few years back. You do have the spares?"

   "Yes, M-"

   "Call me ma'am again, and I'll give you to Masada." Zandra said. She stopped walking and stepped directly into Orst's path. "Quick but very important fact: I am not your boss, I am not your commander, I am not your overlord, master, or anything like that. What I am is tired, aching, and I've had a fairly lousy day. I'm giving you a chance to make up for whatever it is you feel you need to apologize for. I don't know what that is, and right now, I don't care. You've got a clean slate with me at the moment and it looks like you could use one. Please don't make me regret that."

   "Yes M-," Zandra held her finger up. Orst's mouth moved silently for a moment as he failed to find the right words. After a moment he slumped slightly. "What should I call you?"

   Zandra smiled. "Doctor. Or Professor, perhaps. I suppose down the road we might be on a first name basis, but, for now, either one will do." Zandra stepped aside and started walking again. She looked back over her shoulder and found Orst right behind her. She smiled again.
 
   "Let's go see how the professionals are doing, shall we?"

   "Yes, Doctor."
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JWBullfrog

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Episode 16
« Reply #17 on: February 03, 2014, 01:08:54 AM »
 The control room looked exactly as Zandra expected it would. A complete and total mess.

    Actually, she had to admit, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Madam and Etherfalcon had contained their fights very well. The bulk of the damage she could see looked like scorch marks and a few consoles smashed into uselessness by having something heavy land on it. She couldn't see clearly but it looked like 'something heavy' usually meant a zombie, or what was left of one.
 
    Zandra had to step over several old corpses and one or two newer ones before she and her shadow reached the main control station. So far Orst had been as good as his word, but it had only been a few minutes.

    "Having fun?" she said lightly over Etherfalcon's private line as she noticed the trail of broken zombies pointing toward his current position.

    "Fun?" he said. "There's nothing fun about combat. It's a constant state of awareness and skill intended to bring the opposition to their knees as quickly as possible."

    "So is that why you've been grinning for the last five minutes," Madam asked dryly from her end of the connection.

    Etherfalcon wisely said nothing. Zandra cut the connection before she could laugh in his ear. She really should control her urge to tease him. He was a good man who, at least by her personal timeline, had done some very good things for mankind, but he had an ego the size of Manhattan, and it was such an inviting target.

    Orst had brought the control station online and was calling up information on the facility systems. She had been watching him out of the corner of her eye as she poked at Etherfalcon. She wasn't completely familiar with Council protocols but, considering that the Council used a very familiar 'point and click' operating system, she would have noticed if he tried anything sneaky like a silent alarm.

    "You have reactor status on number three to your right and portal status in front of you, Professor."

    "Thank you... just what is your name, anyway? Group Leader takes far too much time to say."

    "Geoffrey Orst, formerly of the Council."

    "Ok, that's still a bit long. I think I'll just use the first half. Can you tell me where everyone is?"
    "Roughly. Somebody destroyed most of the cameras with a high energy weapon.." Orst glanced sideways at Zandra while she tried to look completely innocent. Apparently he'd seen the video footage from earlier in the day. "I'll have the troops call in. If I may?" She nodded as he reached for a microphone.

    "This is Group Leader Orst. All Council personnel report in to central control. The facility is under code three alert. All forces are to act accordingly."

    "Before I'm forced to hurt you, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about that last bit. It meant?"

    "Betrayal by allied forces. Defend yourselves if necessary. Further instructions are forthcoming."

    "And that was code three? What are the first two?"

    "Betrayal by our own forces and betrayal by our leadership, respectively."

    "Sounds like the Council has serious trust issues."

    "World Domination by force of arms, hatred, and rampant paranoia. That's the Council way."

    "Geoff, that sounded like a joke. I didn't think the Council had a sense of humor."

    "I'm not Council any more." Orst smiled for the first time in a long while. Zandra matched him with a grin. He still needed watching but he was sounding more human by the moment.

    "Is there a reason the computer readouts are in Russian?"

    Orst shrugged, "It's what we were given."

    "Is there a reason I suddenly have fire support?" asked Etherfalcon. "Somebody is sniping Zombies out from around me."

    "I'd say somebody," Zandra glanced at Orst who was also not very good at looking innocent, "is settling a few grudges. Enjoy it while it lasts."

    "The Pantheon are retreating," said Madam. "Give chase or let them go?"

    Zandra thought for a moment. "Let them go. I need a few minutes to find out how bad off we are."

    Orst began rallying his remaining troopers in the command room while Zandra looked over the equipment readings. The reactors would be easy enough to fix. She hadn't been able to get close enough to them to do any serious damage. They were wobbly but fairly stable. As long as nobody tried to pull much power from them, they would be ok.

    "Looks like the power isn't a problem any longer," said Etherfalcon from over her left shoulder.
 
    "It isn't really an option either." said Zandra distractedly. "It'll be a bit before I'd trust the reactors for more than running the basics." Zandra's eyes started to water. She was trying to watch five pieces of data with only two eyes and translating from Russian to English on the fly. She could feel a headache starting and, while it would be completely fitting with the day, she decided to avoid it. Under normal circumstances, she'd be trying to keep as much information as possible away from any other people involved. Controlling knowledge about the functionality of time travel was one of her organization's primary directives but, considering who was involved, she knew that it would be all but impossible.
 
     "Check the diagnostics on the time portal will you? Something looks way out of place. You're looking for readings above 300 cycles, "she said as Etherfalcon leaned in and toggled a switch. "Also, whatever possessed you to use a particle beam? There are easier ways to kill yourself. You had it tuned too high. About a dozen cycles slower would have done just as well. The Triangle is already a hot spot."

    "I'll keep that in mind."

    "I'd rather you didn't. But, since I know you never forget anything, just try not to make a habit out of Time travel. Also, I'd greatly appreciate it if you told Alexis as little as possible about this. I had to make a bit of an executive decision getting her out of here and she knows far too much already. Once you get home, stay there. Please. I'd rather not meet you again until I actually meet you for the first time."

    "And just when is that?" asked Madam from behind her right shoulder.

    Zandra smiled. Eventually everyone started fishing for hints. She'd gotten good at being vague. "Shortly after I meet you for the first time, Madam. And, before you ask, Alexis asked about historical events and Caridad wanted lottery numbers."

    "That sounds about right," said Etherfalcon. Madam replied with an amused sniff.

    Zandra smiled again. Since she really didn't feel like sorting out the paradoxes, she couldn't tell either of them all the things they would be involved in. She also wouldn't be able to admit out loud  that she was working alongside two of her personal heroes.

    "Professor, I'm in contact with all of my remaining forces. They're confused but awaiting instructions." Zanda relaxed a bit at Orst's words. Not being shot at by trigger happy soldiers made things easier.

    "Now that you know where your people are, can you put that on a rough map? And include the known positions of the Pantheon, if possible."

    "A moment, please." Orst had brought up a map of the facilty and began highlighting sections in green and red. "Green represents our best estimate of Council forces. Red is Pantheon." Zandra thought something looked familiar with the way the colors were displayed but Etherfalcon spotted the emerging pattern first.

    "I can't be certain with the static displays, but it looks like The Pantheon are all collected around the same spot." Etherfalcon pointed at a room just off center of the map. "Whats in that room?"

    "The Time Portal," said Zandra and Orst together. The stereo reply caught them both off guard. Orst recovered first. "They were asking me to open the portal earlier so they could bring in reinforcements."

    "Not good," said Zandra as she shifted over to the console with the portal information. "Geoff, get yourself and your people moving, I need the Pantheon out of that room if at all possible. Madam, Falcon, I need you there as well. Whatever happens, do not allow them to get that portal opened."

    "And you?" asked Madam.

    Zandra didn't look up from the console." I don't have time to get down to the power room and shut down the reactors properly. I either need to get them stable quickly, in which case we'll just have an unstable time portal to worry about or, if I can't fix the power and the Pantheon flip the switch, not one, but three, fusion reactors just might go critical. If that happens, this could be the worst day of our lives."
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JWBullfrog

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Episode 17
« Reply #18 on: February 10, 2014, 12:49:44 AM »
    "The Universe loves messing with you," was one of the truisms taught to all aspiring Chronologists. Nobody was certain why; but it seemed that once you left your own native time, the Universe (or some other force, the jury was still out on that) went out if it's way to make everything you did a thousand times more complicated. It didn't matter if you went back five thousand years or five seconds, until you got back to where you were supposed to be, everything you did was likely to go wrong.

    In Zandra's case the score currently stood at one ancestor, two legends, and three unstable fusion reactors.

    She had fixed the first problem (probably, maybe, no time to think about that now) and, assuming that everything went well over the next few minutes, paradox would sort the second one out eventually. It was that third one that was making her sweat. Fusion reactors were a safer version of atomic energy but anything that relied on an internal working temperature of 5000 degrees was not exactly harmless. Due to the design that the Council was using, any containment failure would subject everything nearby to a very brief burst of very hot plasma. If that happened steel would melt, concrete would shatter and anything flammable (which at that temperature was most everything) would burn. Since the Council had placed all three of their reactors in the same room, the process would most likely cascade until it reached the closest of the hydrogen storage tanks.

    Hindenburg did not begin to describe the problem.

    The Council had created their own fuel by converting sea water to hydrogen. According to the information available to her, Zandra estimated that they had several metric tonnes of the gas in storage. One of the first things taught in chemistry classes was that Hydrogen burned. Containing a rapidly burning gas turned it into an explosive, and having that much potential explosive force beneath her feet made Zandra very nervous.

    The Universe was having a great laugh at her expense.

    "Stupid... primitive... archaic... Council...junk. Couldn't have built things with proper automation. No, that would have made things too easy. Couldn't you have robbed a few more banks and bought something better then old Soviet computers running Windows 3? You could have at least switched them from Cyrillic to English." Zandra swore softly as she moved from workstation to workstation trying to get something working in her favor. Her initial plan had been to shut down the entire power grid and completely isolate the reactors but the Council, in their completely boneheaded wisdom, decided to make the entire system impossible to shut down by less than six people in six physical locations.

    Council paranoia at it's finest.

    To make things worse, the Council engineers (and Zandra silently apologized to all the other engineers in the world for that phrase) had hardwired the time portal directly into the reactors.
 
    Zandra switched on her communicator. "Madam, Falcon, there's nothing I can do from here. If the Pantheon try to open the portal, you'll need to destroy it."

    "That'll make it difficult to get us back home," said Etherfalcon.

    "Should have thought of that before you you started playing with your particle beam," said  Madam from next to him.

    "You're not going to let that go are you," mumbled Etherfalcon.

    "No," said Madam in a tone of voice that very clearly promised that this was a topic that she would use against him repeatedly in the days to come.

    "Could we destroy the power feeds to the room?" asked Etherfalcon.

    "That might work," said Zandra. " I think I can get comrade computer here to give my a schematic of the room and then you could..."

    "NO!" shouted Orst through the radio link. "A sudden loss of power to the portal would be interpreted as an attack and that would trigger the self destruct charges on the hydrogen tanks."

    Zandra was speechless. The Council had just achieved a level of senseless paranoia that defied even the broadest definition of clinical insanity. They had a system that would blow them to kingdom come if somebody flicked the wrong switch. Suddenly the excessive redundancy made sense.

    "Right. New plan then," she said after a moment. "If you can't stop the Pantheon, cripple the portal. The feedback will be murder but I think I can deal with that."

    "And just how will you do that?" asked Madam.

    "Hopefully, I won't have to explain. I'm going to lock things down here and come down to help. I'll be a few minutes. Geoff, do you have any of your people in place yet?"

    "Two squads are engaging now and are meeting heavy resistance. Another two will be in position in three minutes. I've already instructed them to engage in suppression fire and target any Panthon that try to engage the controls. They will hold their positions as long as possible. My group and your two allies will be on scene in ... six minutes."

    "Five squads? That's only fifty men. I thought you said you had nearly a hundred." Etherfalcon's voice echoed slightly between Orst's and his own link.

    "I did." The radio link transmitted Orst's dismay perfectly. He'd lost thirty five more soldiers during the firefight. The Pantheon had gained thirty five.

    Zandra engaged the last of the commands she had set up and left the computers to carry them out. She held her right hand out to the side and subvocally whistled at just the right pitch to activate the recall button on her energy rifle. It appeared in her hand and she snapped it out and down to bring it into a firing position. It's charge was low so she only had a few more shots; which was about right since she was just about out of tricks anyway. It had been a long day, but one way or another, it would be over soon. As she sprinted out of the control room she couldn't help but be consumed with a single thought...


    "Did I grade those term papers?"
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JWBullfrog

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episode 18
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2014, 01:42:15 AM »
    Brother Ma'oun's reality was very simple.The Spirits spoke: he did as they said. It was a reality that had brought him great power but once, in a past he didn't care to remember, he'd had a different reality. He'd been a bland, forgettable, corporate nobody; working in a bland, forgettable, corporate office. Day in and day out for ten years his life had been numbers and files and ledgers and meeting after incessant meeting, going nowhere... going mad.

    The Spirits of the Pantheon looked for minds like his; minds beaten down by apathy and failure, minds that would hear their whispers and the promise of granting a man's every desire if he'd only honor, worship...believe.

    Ma'oun was in ecstasy as he stood in the center of the portal room, directing his brother shamans and their reanimated servants against the soldiers who had, briefly, been allies. There had never been any doubt that he and his brothers would have slaughtered the soldiers eventually but it was now that the spirits had decided to strike.

    "Open the doorway," whispered the spirits. "open the doorway and we shall have all of the strength we need to crush their lives." Ma'oun didn't question, he simply obeyed.

    Or tried to, anyway.

    The Gods of the Pantheon had vast knowledge of all things ancient and magical, but they were a bit lacking on the finer points of modern temporal engineering. Ma'oun's own past life as an accountant from Houston didn't offer any better insights on which of the dozens of Russian made, Cyrillic labeled switches actually turned the portal on.

    Ma'oun didn't have the option of admitting that he hadn't the slightest idea of what to do to obey the will of his Gods. The spirits were notorious for not listening to excuses, so Ma'oun relied on the one option he had remaining to him: start flipping switches and hope that he hit the right combination.

                        ******

    Geoffrey Orst fired two rounds from his pistol, trusting the heavy slugs to at least stagger the shambling corpse in front of him. Bullets were a lousy way to deal with a walking dead man, unless you had enough of them to shred the body. Orst would have preferred a man portable Gatling gun or, perhaps better, a flamethrower, but since all he had was his sidearm, he had to make do.

    He ducked under the swinging arms of the Husk and kept moving toward the portal room. Normally it would have been a bad tactical move to leave a functioning enemy behind you, but one of the two people following him would make sure that the corpse stayed dead.

                        ******

    Etherfalcon had to give Orst credit. The man was brave and skilled but whether or not he could be trusted was still open for debate. Ever since his capture he had lived up to his word but that could end at any moment.
 
    Orst's last target hadn't fully recovered it's balance when Etherfalcon used a simple Aikido throw to drop it to the ground where a swift kick snapped the corpses neck and turned off whatever was animating it. Etherfalcon had never put much thought into why that worked, by all logic it shouldn't, but he wasn't about to argue with a successful strategy.
 
    If his onboard mapping system was right, they would be at the portal room in moments, which was a good thing since Masada's anger was just about at the critical point. Anyone who didn't know her would never had been able to tell but Etherfalcon knew the signs. She was perfectly calm and walked with a steady, measured pace. Her hands held her knives loose at her sides, points slightly out and down. She hadn't said anything since leaving the control room; hadn't made any unnecessary sound of any kind, in fact. Anyone who didn't know her would just assume that she was perfectly fine. Unless they noticed the fact that the right side of her mouth was just, slightly, tilted down and her eyes were opened just a little too wide.

    Once they hit the portal room, Etherfalcon planned on staying as far from her as he could.

                        ******

    Madam Masada's first view of the portal room lasted all of three seconds. That was all of the time she needed to note four critical facts. First: the portal was not active. Second: the Council soldiers had managed to drive the Pantheon into the center of the room and were effectively holding them there by weight of fire. Third: neither Etherfalcon or Orst were obstructing her path. Fourth: The main floor of the room was only fifteen feet below her.

    Like a dancer about to launch into a Grande Jete, Masada took three fast strides and launched herself out over the railing of the walkway. She sailed gracefully into the open space, subtly altering her posture and position in the air so that, instead of dropping straight down, she inscribed a shallow arc that dropped her into the center of the Pantheon.

                        *******

    Orst experienced a moment of awe. He'd watched Masada's leap and had a momentary flash of complete fascination.

    "Is she..." he started to ask Etherfalcon. The blue and silver suited hero just shook his head slightly.

    "Available? Not to anyone as far as I can tell."

    "I was going to say insane," said Orst quietly.

    Etherfalcon thought for a moment. "Right now? Perhaps. But, if you value your life it's best if you don't ask her that. That's one question even I'm not willing to have answered."

                        *******

    Somewhere, in a part of her mind that wasn't really important at the moment, Madam knew that she was surrounded. That fact, like so many others had been shoved aside in favor of more important things.

    Target and Response. Move and Countermove. Vengeance and Retribution.

    As her knives flowed in a deadly steel ballet, Madam bestowed punishment on the people who destroyed Astoria, who murdered innocents for insane gods, who dared threaten Alexis and Caridad, and who were a direct threat to her own life. As she severed arms and separated heads from shoulders, her mind drifted into the null state that she had been taught a very long time earlier.

    "Don't think," her instructors had said. "Your body knows what to do and your mind will only get in the way. Feel. Flow. Breathe. Simplicity."

                        *******

    Six Pantheon corpses had simply come apart under Madam's assault before Orst could react. He issued quick orders to his remaining troopers to concentrate fire not on the cultists, but the time portal itself. The priority was preventing the portal from activating. His troops' fire was the only way he had to try and make that happen. There was no way he could reach the control panel through the cultists unless, that is, Masada carved a path wide enough.

                        *******

    Etherfalcon had already moved into the room to back up Masada and keep the cultists corralled. He had some small thermite charges on his belt that would effectively destroy the portal, but he'd have to get closer in order to place them where they'd do the most good. His best bet was to keep Masada from being blindsided. At the pace she was working, it would only take a few minutes to finish off the Pantheon.

                        *******

    Brother Ma'oun had given up on the switches. He didn't have a choice. His people were getting torn apart by a seemingly untouchable woman and the spirits demanded that he act. He raised his hands and began the chant that would summon one of the great spirits; one that had enough power to destroy the woman and everyone else that opposed them. The spirits were granting him just enough power for this, but no more. He could feel their displeasure and, if the great spirit wasn't enough, it would be better if he stepped into the woman's knives. It would be kinder.

                        ******

    Etherfalcon could feel the change in the air. He'd been around magic enough to know what that peculiar ozone feeling meant. Something was being summoned and, if he was interpreting the feeling correctly, it was something big. He and Masada were having no trouble with the minions, but that, whatever it was, would probably be more than enough to change the balance. He glanced around the room at his allies.
 
    Orst and his soldiers didn't seem to notice anything. He didn't expect they would have. The Council had trouble accepting any solution that didn't involve science. Masada was lost in her own world. If she'd noticed, it wasn't obvious but it did look like she was angling for the shaman closest to the control panel. Zandra was nowhere in sight but that might have meant that she'd found another solution to their dilemma.

    Etherfalcon increased the pace of his own attacks. He needed to clear the room before whatever it was got here and wiped them all out.

                        ******

    Brother Ma'oun could feel the strength draining out of him. The greater spirit required a sacrifice before it entered this world and Ma'oun only had one life he could offer. With a peaceful heart, he offered his own life force to the spirit. As his body collapsed to the ground he could hear the spirit speak to him...

    'such a tiny soul. barely a meal...'
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.