Entry 24 - Trash Collector

Louis was a trash collector. Everyday he'd dress his work suit, drink his cup of morning coffee, and drag himself into the street. There he's hop into the first car with a empty seat and sleep for a while until they reached the work city. His tower was the third on so he would normally walk there if it wasn't raining. When it rained he'd take the automatic sidewalk, squished by the thousands of workers trying to be on their desks on time. On this particular day, it wasn't raining so Louis walked outside to the door. He climbed into the elevator after being validated by the security devices, and stepped into the cubicle maze. After five years there he could find the way with closed eyes, straight ahead for ten cubicles, turn left and walk past five more, turn right and it's the fourth on the right. He takes the coat off, putting it in the hanger, sits down at his desk, turning his terminal on.
The screen has only 5 icons, one in each corner and one in the middle. On the top left a email client, bottom left the information browser, bottom right the music player and on the center the control program. He put on the glove and taped the top right corner of the screen, entered the time and day, closed the application, tapped the email, dragged all the union communications to the deleted folder and read the only important email : the route for the day. He dragged the bullet list with the name of streets into the second screen that had been black until now, found the little box with his wireless ear pods, put them on and tapped music, tapped random, tapped play and dragged the player to the second screen too.
When all was ready he tapped the central icon, checked what the starting point was, selected the nearest available Tele-guided Garbage Collector Vehicle and started driving it to the first pickup point. Driving was done with the gloved right hand by leaning it in the correct direction, so anyone looking would see a grown up man waving his hand in front of a screen, looking bored to the moving dot on the map, checking for collisions on the four cameras, making sure none of the 41 status indicators turned yellow, or god forbid! red. Once the TeGaCoV reached the first pick up point Louis closed and opened his hand in a swift movement, the vehicle stopped and the screen changed. Instead of the map, the central part showed the view from the crane's camera, that the glove now controlled. He could do it in less than a minute now, bu the first time he had to pick up a trash can and empty it to the truck it took him almost thirty minutes. Now his hand would mimic the crane, grabbing the trash can, calculating exactly when he needed to tip it off, and doing so.
After emptying all of the trash cans in the crane's range, he once again closed and opened his hand, cycling to movement mode, and drove the truck to the next pick up point. He was operating in a link he had never been worked on before, so when he saw a men wearing nothing but a loincloth and a huge axe, he dismissed it as 'some local costume'. Until the barbarian ran into the vehicle and started hitting it with the axe. Little yellow and red lights started to blink, and the TeGaCoV entered automatic mode, backing up and running away. Once the truck was safe inside the hangar, Louis tapped the 'report incident' button hidden inside one of the menus.
"Vehicle attacked by barbarian retreated to hangar. Request orders." he typed into the "describe your problem" box after finding the keyboard under the stack of newspapers, and tapped submit. The 'estimated resolution time' was above twenty minutes so he got off of his chair and went to bar. There he met three other coworkers, one of them trying to convince the others that a crazy man dressed as a barbarian had trashed his trash collector truck. Louis chipped in with "It happened to me too. Which link were you working on?". His coworker replied with the link code, and Louis nodded a "me too". The others were looking at them with a 'I don't believe a word of that' face, that only got away when another guy entered, and before anyone asking him he goes "I was working on RD-13-01F, when a crazy guy attacks my damned tegacov with a bloody axe". Louis and the other one both turned and went "SEE?" to which they finally agreed something strange was happening. Later, a internal memo was sent to every employee, saying that the link with the code RD-13-01F would no longer be cleaned by their company due to a 'change in regime'.

Entry 23 - The Case of the Wrong Address

When I woke up she wasn't there in bed so I got up, grabbed a robe and dragged my feet into the bathroom, and she still was nowhere to be seen. After the bath and shaving, she arrived, with bags of groceries.
"Hello my love, I brought us breakfast. Come to the kitchen when you are dressed."
I did as ordered, and met her at the table. Our house is huge compared to the one I had before. Two bedrooms, a small library, a living and a dinning room, kitchen and bathrooms. It even had a small backyard, "for our kids to play" she had said when we chose this one.
After bringing down The Order of Horus we found ourselves very comfortable in finances from the rewards. Jewels, cars, weapons and criminals had gone to their rightful place.
It had been incredibly easy to bring down the cult with her help. She had infiltrated the cult to steal the Eye of Horus, and she knew who it was that I had to arrest to bring the cult down. It crumbled like a card castle that has had one of it's foundations removed.
I still found it hard to believe only five month had passed since that day I found her in my office. I still have the office, but now the rest of the floor is also mine. I don't work alone anymore, I'm the Chief Investigator of the Private Investigators Agency, and five other investigators work with me. Tommy and James are both ex-cops, that decided they wanted to make a bit more money. Frances is a lovely woman, getting close to old age. She was married to a police detective for years, until he was brutally killed three month ago. She alone unraveled the circumstances of his death, and succeeded in solving a case that was baffling the police. So I gave her a job. Marlon was a PI already, but when I opened the Agency he offered to join. And the last of them is Sam. Sam is a kid, early twenties, fresh out of one of the best colleges in the system, and a brilliant mind. I call her She-Lock, but she doesn't understand why, since for some reason, Arthur Conan Doyle's classics were never published in her link. I intend to give her a copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes as soon as I find one.
Stella helps me out at the office, and it feels wonderful to work with the woman I love, to wake up next to her everyday, and to see her smile whenever I look to the side. I had forgotten what it meant to be in love ever since I came into the Secret System... I was married once, I'm not even sure if I still am married in the "real world". This world is more real than what ever world I was in before I came here. I used to miss them, my old family, but now I'm too happy to think about those things. Stella once asked me where was it that I came from, after reading my notebooks, but I never got around to answer. It still isn't easy to think back to that day, and for now I don't want to. But it is part of my story, part of who I am, and of why I am here, so eventually I shall write it down.
Where was I going? Oh, I know, the case of the wrong address. That one should give you, the silent reader that I still feel looking over my shoulder, a idea of the power of the PIA.
It was one of James informants that tipped us out to that one. A old man got a letter for some other person with the same name as him, but a different address. There had been some mistake at the post office and the letter ended in the sack of one mailman that happen to know the old man. So he saw the name and delivered it, not noticing the address was wrong. So far, nothing that would be of interest for the PIA, except that inside the envelope there was only one photograph. A picture of a dead body and a note on the back "You are next. Love, Mimmy". Now, the old man, Philip, knew no one that went by the name Mimmy, not did he recognize the dead body. His reaction was to go to the police, but they dismissed it as a bad joke. But one of them kept a copy of the picture and showed it to James that showed it to me, and we had a case. The old man wasn't very rich, but even so, when we contacted him he said that he would pay if we helped him out. He was freaked out by the picture and by the idea that someone else might die.
The first thing we did was check up on the real recipient. There was no Philip K. Grill in Allyson Street. Shelock checked the entering records of Dark City and there was only one person with such a name, the old man that received the letter in the first place. I had Tommy, James and Marlon search other links for the second Philip. It took us two weeks but we tracked him down, in a low-tech link, going by a different, although not very imaginative, name. Shelock made contact and after convincing him she knew him not to be John Doe but Philip Grill and explaining the situation, he agreed in helping us track down and arrest Milly.
Milly had been his high school sweetheart and the dead man was their partner in the business they opened after college. They kicked Milly out of it because they suspected her of stealing money. A few months later his partner appears dead in his house and Philip decides it's time to start a new life somewhere else. Knowing her real name and last known address it was easy to find and capture her. She confessed and both Philips now life in peace and without fear.
So if you ever have a nagging interrogation, no matter how irrelevant it might seem, come and question the Private Investigators Agency at the Dark City. We take and solve all cases for a affordable price.

Old Lady

Night. A woman, old. She lives alone in that house. It used to be a small house, many a year ago, when her sons ran around, playing, screaming, singing, laughing, crying. The sons are gone. All the six of them. The older boys she lost to war. The rest married and went to the city, where there are opportunities and work. On the old town only the elder still live, in houses like this one, of wood and rock. She lived there all her life, gave birth to her sons there and raised them there. Her husband, now long dead, had been born not too far, second son to a farmer family. He left the town only for war, not the one that took her sons, the one before. The day he left, he asked her in marriage, and two years later was back to keep his promise. Sometimes she looks at the ring in her finger and smiles, remembering. She lived alone, not even a pet to keep her company. It is just her, the house and the ghosts. She knows them quite well, been living with them for so long. There's Creaky, that makes doors creak, Drippy, that makes faucets drip, Howlly, that howls at night, The One In The Cellar, and so many more. More than once she tried to count them, but she always loses count somewhere between fifteen and twenty. Right now, as we speak, she is on the kitchen. The radio is on, playing some old thirties music and she's mixing the soup while keeping up with rhythm. When the music ends, she tastes the soup and serves a plate. She sits at the old table, eating the soup slowly. Music still plays and the tablecloth dances to the sound of it, the old woman rises her plate, and it leaves the table to dance more freely. She is watching, the soup getting cold on the plate, and the white cloth dances, changing shape to the music's beat, now a Elvis classic. A knock on the door and the tablecloth flies back to the table. The woman gets up and walks to the door, stops right before reaching it, and waits for it to open by itself. It's the next door neighbor, asking for salt. The old lady reaches for the a salt package that has been traveling to her hand for a few seconds already, and gives it to the old man "keep it" she says "I have more". With a smile she closes the door and gets back to the table. The cloth resumes it's dancing and keeps her company until it's time to sleep.
Morning. The house stands in the middle of nothing worth of mention, the neighbor's house some ten minutes away, walking time for a young man. The old lady is already up, in the back of the house, overseeing a pair of gloves that are picking up parsley and oregano and other assorted herbs. She isn't talking but the sound of the radio plays in the distance. The little basket where gloves have been placing the herbs flies to her. She looks inside, smiles and says "That should be enough. Can you get me some garlic too?" The gloves go a bit further away and return, each holding a garlic bulb, drop them inside the small basket and clap themselves clean. The woman now goes back inside, where a couple of knifes are busy taking the spines and skin off of a big fish. She sits down, asks one of them to turn the music's volume down, asks another to grab the old metal cauldron. She conducts them into cutting the fish, the herbs, the vegetables, the potatoes, and placing them inside the cauldron, previously filled with water and put in the fire that began some when in between.
Early afternoon. The cauldron still stands over the fire, a spoon mixing the food inside. The old woman is no where to be seen in the kitchen. The kitchen has a door to the outside and another one that leads to a small corridor with a door on each end only that connects to the house. A living room, a small bathroom, a guest room and stairs going up. Up we find another corridor, with sleeping rooms on each side and another flight of stairs leading upper, to the attic. She is there, sitting on the floor, surrounded by trinkets, books and closed chests. She cries over a picture of her dead husband. One of the chests opens, and out of it clothes fly away. A army officer's uniform stands in front of her, salutes her, and then extends a hand, inviting her to dance. "There is no music." The old vinyl collection stirs, and one of the records comes out of it's sleeve, landing on a ancient looking gramophone. The small crank starts spinning, and the music begins. A waltz. Not any waltz, her first dance at the weeding night. She dances for a while, until the sun slowly goes behind the hills. She now smiles instead of crying, and goes down the stairs happily.
Dinner time. A car stops at the door, on of those fashionable SUVs, dirt covered but recent. A woman sits inside while a man, on his early thirties, exits trough the other door. He goes around the car, opens the door to his wife and helps her out. Then they go the old house, he with happiness in his face, she with obvious disgust, always looking down, making sure she didn't step on a puddle of mud. The old lady waits them at the door, a real smile shinning on her lips. "Welcome my love!" she says. The man kisses her cheeks and enters. The two women greet each other. The old one with warmth and love, the young one with nothing but a fake smile. "Aunt" - the young woman says - "you should really move. This old house is too big for you! Don't you feel lonely?"
The old lady smile widens as she replies, winking at her son "No, not really. The ghosts keep me company."

Boxes in the Basement

Hidelbert Preston was a normal fifteen year old. He hated his father once a week, his mother twice. He couldn't stand Aristides, the ten year old little brother, yet if you asked him he'd say that he loved the little kid. Today was a "I hate my father" day. Unfortunately it was also a "I hate my mother day" and damned Aristides was being annoying as hell. All Hidelbert wanted was to go to the Halloween party.
"But all the kids are going!"
"If all the kids jumped off a bridge would you jump too?"
"But I already have the costume!"
"Maybe you should have consulted your mother and I before buying it, then."
"But.. Mom! I'm Fifteen! Tell dad I can go!"
"If dad says no, then no it is."
It never went anywhere. Dad was already back to his newspaper, and mom was more interested in the soap opera. Aristides was running around the house, dressed in his Mega Man costume, shooting nerf balls to whatever moved : mostly the dog, but once or twice his older brother. Hidelbert just turned his back on the smaller kid and went into the basement. Dad didn't like him to go down there, but it was the only place in the house where he could feel at peace. He went down the stairs, pushed the light cord and sat between the bookshelf and the Christmas decorations, as always. Picking a book at random, he opened it and tried to read. Anger wasn't letting him focus, and after a few minutes of reading the first sentence over and over again, he threw the book into the far reaches of the basement. Hidelbert had been down there countless times, but he never explored the room. It was as big as the rest of the house, filled with books, gardening tools, old clothes, assorted computer parts, and lots and lots of boxes, "Zachary Preston personal effects" written on them. Above the handwritten letters, a shield Hidelbert had learned was from dad's old military division. Once he had asked mom about it, and she made him promise he would never ask dad about it. "Dad was in the army long ago. He left when he met me, and he doesn't like to remember those times" "Why does he keep those boxes then?" Hidelbert wanted to ask, but something in the way mom's face turned sad while she spoke of it made him change his mind. The shield itself was spooky : a raven holding a skull in it's claws.
Since he was hating both his parents that day, he decided to open one of the boxes and see what was it that his father kept. All boxes were numbered, and he decided to go for box 3, because he liked the number. It was a regular cardboard box, sealed with tape. He carefully ripped it open, revealing a bunch of simple notebooks. He grabbed the first one, opened it randomly and read :
"subject 4 still shows a strong appetite and no signs of fatigue. Test subject 5 almost doesn't eat and refuses to respond when questioned". He flipped a few pages and read : "Kludsu mated with Amberlea again last night. After seeing the tapes it seems as if it was Amberlea that lured Kludsu into her room, even after the talk we had last night. I believe she wishes to reproduce. If she finds the formula I shall have to recommend that she is euthanized". He grabs another notebook, from three months later, opens randomly again and reads "Amberlea still refuses to eat. It's been one month since we had to kill Kludsu. We've been force feeding her and she bit a technician yesterday. He will now be referred as test subject 23. He is stable so far, but shows signs of fatigue. I checked the records and test subjects survived for a average of 42 hours after being bitten. The longest is still test subject 5, that survived for 89 hours."
Hidelbert was each time more morbidly curious. It seemed that his father had been researching with humans, under government jurisdiction. But human testing was forbidden. And who was Amberlea? Was she human too? If so, why would her bite kill? He looked for box 1, opened it and searched for the first of the notebooks. Opening it on one of the first pages he read : "... all the ingredients. We should be ready to begin the summoning in two days". A few pages ahead : "Success. We summoned one. Doctor Ramul named him Zardox." Hidelbert skimmed over the entire notebook, and found nothing on what he was searching so he picked another one, and another one, until he found a entry about her : "I named her Amberlea. She is a perfect example. Her fangs retract, and she looks human." The rest was mostly clinical information and didn't matter to him.
He put the notebooks back into the box, closed it and looked around. The boxes were numbered from 1 till 28, and 4 boxes with letters : K, R, S e Z. He picked box K and opened it. He jumped back and gave a very unmanly scream when he saw the bones inside. He took several deep breaths and looked again. The bones looked as if they had been thrown inside the box without care. The skull was buried in the other bones, and Hidelbert could only see it's top. So he closed his eyes and reached to pull it out. It was almost human, if it were not for the jaw. The canines were as big as Hidelbert's thumb and hollow. He dropped the skull inside the box and was about to close it again when he saw something shinning inside. He grabbed it and saw that it was a ornate metal bracelet with the name 'Kludsu' on it. It reminded hm of something but he couldn't remember what. He put the bracelet in his pocket and closed the box. He then turned around to find a pair of shadows standing between him and the door.
Again he screamed, until he realized it was just mom and dad probably alerted by the noise before. Dad was sad, with a disappointed look on his face. "How many times have I told you I don't like you coming down here?"
"Dad... What was it that you did for the military?"
"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"
"TOO LATE FOR THAT DAD! I read the notebooks. Human experimenting? And what was Kludsu? Was Amberlea a beast too?"
Dad slapped Hidelbert with all his strength, sending the teen to the floor. Mom was standing next to dad, silently, looking to the floor.
"Don't you dare calling her a beast!"
"They weren't human. You said so yourself! What were they? Animals?"
Mom looked at him, shock in her face. She lift her hand, as if to slap him, and Hidelbert remembered why was it that the metal bracelet he saw on the box seemed familiar. Her mother had one too. He couldn't see it from here, but he felt sure he knew what was written on it : Amberlea. Dad was crying now, holding his son by the shoulder : "This.. You shouldn't, you.. DAMN YOU STUPID KID!"
He escaped his father's clutch and pulled Mom's arm down with one hand, removing the bracelet with the other. Dad kicked him in the chest, throwing him to the floor "FUCK!" he screamed "WHY YOU FUCKING BRAT?"
The basement door opened and Aristides looked down, still in his costume, as shoot a nerf ball to Mom. She had been silent since Hidelbert removed the bracelet, a smile forming one her lips, slowly. When the ball hit her she turned her torso to the door, without moving her feet, opened her mouth, revealing huge teeth and with hunger in her eyes, she jumped. In one movement she grabbed the younger kid's head, jerked it to the side and stuck her fangs on his neck. After draining one, she jumped back to the floor, grabbed dad by the neck, and laughing, blood dripping from her teeth, covering her face and dress, lifted him. Dad was scared beyond words while she spoke, slowly "You thought you could keep me constrained forever? Sooner or latter you would die. This stupid kid only sped it up. And as a reward, he shall die last." She opened her mouth to a abnormally immense size and bit half of dad's head off. That was the last thing Hidelbert saw before fainting.

the fall

They were falling,into a shapeless, colorless, soundless void. He couldn't see nor hear her but he knew she was there, falling with him into the nothingness. They fell for hours, days, years, centuries. and then, he woke up. Sweating, crying, confused and lost, he reached for the light switch. It wasn't there. That was when he remembered where he was, and that she was there with him. The shades were down, and no light came from the outside. Above her alarm clock, one of those new hologram models, the time rotated slowly, 04:04, the only thing he could see in the dark bedroom. He found his communication gauntlet on the bedside table and put it on. The light yellow light showed him she was sleeping, calmly. His clock was, as usual, 5 minutes ahead, 04h10m now showing in the LCD screen. He got up, and using the small light, found his way till the bathroom. He remembered her flatmate just after passing by the room's door on the way back, dressed in socks only. He went back into her room, fumbled on his trousers pocket until he found the battered pack. Three left. He shrugged, tomorrow, no, later today, he'd get more. Taking one out, he sat on the floor, a ashtray next to him, the wall behind his back, and he smoked.
The nightmare forgotten he got back into bed, cautious not to wake her. He gently put the communicator back on the bed table and waited for it's light to go out before closing his eyes again. The hologram now rotated a 04:20, and his eyes focused on the red numbers while closing. He kept seeing the numbers even after being deep asleep. He woke up hours after with a gentle kiss on his shoulder, her lips inviting him to wake up and continue what had begun late last night. "I had a horrible nightmare" - she said - "help me forget it". He replies something, still not awake. Only after, both lying on their backs, his hand playing with her hair, did he say "I had a nightmare too. We were falling into the darkness. For what seemed like forever." She looked at him, a weird look in her eyes "Did I speak about my dream in my sleep? That was exactly what I dreamt to. You heard the voices?" Now it's his turn to look at her with weirdness in his eyes "I heard nothing. It was as void of sound as of sight." She is getting up, looking for clean underwear in the drawers, and talking back "Well, yes, it was all dark and silent, until I hit the ground. I felt no pain, no nothing."
"I never did hit the floor. I woke up when I was about to it, or just after. I'm surprised I didn't wake you up."
"When I'm tired I can sleep through a volcano erupting. And I was pretty tired last night" - she winced at him, a naughty smile in her lips - "Any way, after I stopped falling, I found myself emerged in darkness, and, as if very far away, I heard a voice. Too faint to understand what it was saying at first, but it came closer. It sounded like it was reading from a book, in monotonous voice." - Her voice turned to a dry tone as she quoted the dream - "From darkness you came, to darkness you shall go. From nothing you were created, into nothing you shall be turned. From the void came your soul, to the void it shall return" - she was dressed by now, sitting at the feet of the bed, a unlit cigarette in her mouth. He reached for his lighter, still where he'd left it, in the bed side table. The room was light only by the small lamp on her side of the bed, the shutters still pulled down. She got up, walking to the window, now smoking, and continued -"That wasn't even the worst part of the dream. The worst part was when the voice, that now seemed to be whispering on my ear, said that I would never wake up, I was forever stuck in the dream since I started falling. Silly right?" - she asks, pulling the blinders up to reveal darkness outside. The hologram numbers now shone a red 11:47 yet outside the window there was no light. Only a black void.
He runs to the door that connected the room to the rest of the house, opens it, relieved to see that the living room is still there. But there too the windows look to the void. He's still dressed in socks only, but that doesn't stop him. He takes a few seconds to unlock the door, and she's now next to him. The door lead to nothing. Nothing but a black void. He screams, but the sound goes nowhere. She puts a foot outside the door, but he pulls her in - "Wait!" They go to the other side of the house. Her flatmate wont answer his room's door, so she opens it : there is nothing there. The bathroom is there, since he went there. The kitchen isn't. She runs back to her room and returns with a book in her hands - "I never liked this damned book"
"I gave it to you, remember?"
"Yeah, well, sorry. At least it will be useful now."
She opens the door once again, and drops the book. It disappears in the black void as soon as it leaves her hand. No sound ever comes to their ears. Eventually he closes the door, and with his arms around her shoulders, takes her back to bed - "I only have two more cigs. Damn" - he hugs her, and pretends not to notice her tears. At the same time he promises her that next time he wakes up from a bad dream he's going to the kitchen, so that there is food when he wakes up. She laughs, a half-hearted laughter only. "It's all your fault, I don't know how or why, but it is." - He shrugs, mutters a 'maybe' and falls silent again. "We are asleep, right?" he asks. She has no answer for him, and we wasn't expecting one "So let's wake up! Slap me. Slap me hard." She slaps him, without any strength at all. "Harder!" She does it again, and again, until his face is red, and tears of pain roll down his cheeks - "Stop! It's no use."
She takes off her clothes again, goes under the bedsheets and curls in a ball. He stays there, looking at her, waiting for her to fall into the sweet oblivion of dreams again. A hour of silence later he calls her, in a low voice. She says nothing, so he gets up of bed, grabs her in his arms, and walks to the front door. He kisses her lips gently and jumps.
They were falling...

swords and spells

I met her in a inn. Yes, I know, that never happens and all, but it's true. I was just in my favorite inn, The Broken Sword, having a pint and kicking back the stress. In enters this strange fellow, in a black cloak, his hood pulled all the way to his nose. The perfectly trimmed white beard and the huge ring in his left index finger were proof enough that he was rich. The Paladins following him, hand in sword, protective pose, ready to strike down anyone that looked at their master were proof that he was from the church. So a Bishop, or a Cardinal. He went to the middle of the inn, took a pair of gold coins and dropped them in the floor. "I need the strongest warrior here for a mission" he said. It's no secret that The Broken Sword is a inn for mercenaries. The owner, old Olaf, was one too in his days : "Big Sword" Olaf. Then he broke his sword in a mission and decided it was enough. The big sword that gave him his fighting name now gave name to the inn. It was over the bar, broken halfway through the blade.
I was alone, but I knew most of the people in there. "Red Eye" Sullivan, "Poison Dagger" Ansoku, Ginny "The Arrow" Hold, little Frank, among many others I had either worked or partied with.
So when she got up, a brown haired beauty in a fit leather armor, with a green cloak and a strange wooden gauntlet in her hand, I was curious. She went to the church man and said "You can't get someone stronger than me". He didn't seem that much impressed. When "Crazy Barbarian" Gulg'r got up, his axe almost as big as the woman, wearing only his iconic loin cloth, made from the skin of the most fearsome wolf in the Tundras he himself had killed unarmed, she looked at him and smiling said "you think you can beat me, barbarian?". That's not the right thing to say to a crazy barbarian. Barbarians are a proud race. The call themselves the strongest fighters in the world, and what she questioned his power. Another barbarian might have thought about the church man, or the paladins, or about injuring another of the inn clients, or, at least, about the money. Gulg'r, at the time, couldn't care less for all those things. He had been challenged. By a tiny girl without weapons. He jumped to her, axe in both hands over his head, and if she was a normal fighter, even a good army fighter, the duel would have been over by then.
But she was good. A step to the side, fast, and Gulg'r had a wooden spike pointed at his heart when he got up. The spike appeared in the gauntlet, and disappeared as soon as the barbarian dropped his axe. She laughed, looking at the hole in the floor where the barbarian had hit with the axe "That was one mighty blow. Had I been slower and there wouldn't be much left of me now!". Gulg'r didn't react to her words of praise, he just grabbed his axe, and went away.
The church man was pleased. "Are you all afraid of the lady?" he said "There's a lot of money at stake for this mission. But she's too strong, right, this little girl is too strong for you all." He was enjoying it, teasing the other mercenaries. Sullivan got up, a flame already burning in his hand, walking slowly to her. She got down to her knees, put the gauntlet in the floor and said a few words. The wooden floor opened below Sullivan's legs, closing around his knees. She was at his side in less that a second. The church man was now convinced of her power, because he tapped her in the shoulder and started to move outside.
Now, I'm not a religious man, not by far. I like to believe the closest thing there is to a God is me. And church men are always too rich for me to feel safe next to one of them. So I had no intrest in helping him. And I knew I wasn't the strongest fighter in the world, just a bit above average. Still I got up to fight the woman. And fight we did. I was fast enough to jump out of the hole, and she was fast enough to dodge my sword swing. After some ten minutes of neither me nor her gaining any advantage, the church man shouted a 'ENOUGH!". We stopped, both breathing hard, looking at each other, ready to strike again. I was sure I could hit her with my left arm, from below, and then throw my sword at her throat. But she had the unsettling smile of someone about to win a fight.
The church man smiled, waved us into a normal, non fighting stance and then said "You are both in. Two such talented fighters will be more useful than just one. Come with me." He left the inn and entered the carriage waiting outside. He signaled us into the next carriage. The paladins entered ahead of us, so I looked at her, a question in my eyes. She shrugged and so I followed them, in silence. Only after we had arrived at the cathedral did someone speak again. It was one of the paladins, telling us where to go. We passed the door and found ourselves in a richly decorated room, with a huge painting of The Lord That Gives Thee Light on the wall. Sitting in front of it was the church man, now without the hood and cloak. He waved at the chairs, and I accepted the invitation to sit. She didn't.
"I am Bishop Incump Riment, as you might have already guessed." I hadn't, but I don't care about church so I never know who is the Town Bishop. I don't even remember who is the kingdom', Archbishop, although I should. She showed no signs of knowing him either. He then said something about a sacred sword, that had belonged to a saint Boav Ontad, and that had been stolen. "We found this a few hours ago. Your mission is to find who did this and bring the sword back".
"You'll want a thief, not fighters." She said what I was thinking too. The bishop pulled a chord and soon a paladin came to the door. He bowed to the bishop and waited. "Show them what the thief did" Riment said, and we followed the paladin into a dungeon, where five bodies lay on the floor. The bodies had once been proud paladins, strong fighters that won't give up. Five of then not only death, but completely crushed, their bones turned into a fine powder. We didn't stay for much down there, because a scream brought us back the stair running. It was too late. The bishop had been killed. A strong blow to his head, just like the paladins down there. The noises in the altar made us go running to the center of the church. As soon as we got there we understood why the paladins had died so easily. It was a troll. A big troll, using the sacred word as a stick to hit people. She was able to take the sword away but the troll hit her in the stomach with his rocky hand, throwing her to the wall. The paladins died quickly, because of the shinny, heavy armors. I dodged the trolls blows for a while until I finally succeeded in tripping him and stabbing his neck between the stony scales. She was unconscious, so I grabbed her and brought her here. So NO, Thomas, I'm not trying to lay with a drunken woman in your hospital, goddammit.

Entry 22 - Record ID 000107-07110002-05-EAD021-060602105

DATA OUTPUT FROM RECORD NUMBER 000107-07110002-05-EAD021-060602105
D = [ Display(000107) --human-readable --important --recommendation --date --external-docByRef ]
> SUBMIT D

-#begin command D output#-
E = [ EXPAND_FILE_ID(000107-07110002-05-EAD021-060602105)]
>> SUBMIT E

--# begin command E output #--
Record Sequence Number 000107, Type 05 - Annexation, System Date 07 11 0002, Link ID EAD021, Link Date 06-06-2105
Link ID description : Earth-like, Anthropomorphic, Democracy-ruled. Sequential 021.
##acquiring more data about link##
Q = [ SELECT LK_Name, LK_Area, LK_Population, LK_Ruler INTO Name, Area, Popul, Ruler WHERE LK_ID = 'EAD021' AND LK_Date = '06062105' ]
>>SUBMIT Q to TABLE:LINK

---# begin command Q output #---
Name Atriumville Area 83 Km2 Popul 50.000 Ruler Armand Sicab
---# end command Q output #---

--# end command E output #--

Record follows operative 0000001 - Billy.
##selecting lines with important or recommendation or date or external references flag on from the report##
G = [ grep "^I-\|R-\|D-\|E-" /records/0002/000107 --line-number ]
##show top 5 lines from the file##
C = [ cat -n /records/0002/000107 | grep ^[1-5] ]
>>SUBMIT C

--# begin command C output #--
1: Billy's report on the annexation of EAD0201, Atriumville.
2:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 06-06-2105.
3: Link shows 21st Century-like architecture and social organization. Highly bureaucratic society, organized in layers : the manual workers layer below the mental workers layer below the scientific layer below the ruling layer. Manual work and mental work layers are about 75% the community.
4:R- If the direct approach fails I suggest converting working classes to the religion of MASS, thus prompting a eventual revolt.
5:I have required a audience with the link's current ruler, and I await his reply in the next hours, via email. It seems to be the major communication method.
[5 lines of 197 shown]
--# end command C output #--

>>SUBMIT G

--# begin command G output #--
2:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 06-06-2105.
4:R- If the direct approach fails I suggest converting working classes to the religion of MASS, thus prompting a eventual revolt.

9:I- Follows conversation with Dr. Sicab. Only actual dialog marked with 'I-' flag according to template specifications.

11:I- Dr. Sicab, I am Billy and I represent MASS.

13:I- Who is mass?
14:I- What. M.A.S.S. is a supercomputer, and he rules over the System.
15:I- Not my town he doesn't rule.
16:I- That's exactly why I am here. You see, MASS will rule over this city, whether you like it or not. So what I ask you is to surrender your command to him.
17:I- What if I refuse? What's he going to do? Bleep at me?
18:I- Among other things. I must warn you that you WILL surrender the command of this city to him, eventually.
19:I- The people of Atriumville elected ME as their leader and I intend to keep that position for the next six years, and eight more if I get re-elected.
20:I- I will leave you the proper power transference papers. You have one year to sign them. In exactly one year, if you have not agreed on the terms, your people will remove you and welcome their new computer overlord.

38: D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 07-06-2105.
47:I- Follows conversation with Mattew Matt, leader of the Workers Union of Atriumville. Only actual dialog marked with 'I-' flag according to template specifications.
48:I- Mr. Matt, I'm Billy, representative of MASS. I gather you have received the email explaining?
49:I- Yes I did. But you better explain yourself better. We chose Dr Sicab to be head of government, and the Union is pleased with his work so far. Yet you say we will help you overthrow him? Why?
51:I- As you can see there, MASS has a plan for every single one of you. In five years there will be no more people starving, no more people without a house, and no more shaddy government moves behind your backs.
52:I- There are no 'shaddy moves' behind our backs! The government is fair and honest.
53:I- Please check section two of that document. I rather enjoyed the selling of parts of town to other towns to 'cure the deficit' as Dr Sicab puts it.
54:E- document name EAD0201-GM2057005
55:I- These are lies!
56:I- There is proof of every single one of these acts. Your city is being slowly sold to other cities. Think about it. How many of the Big Companies acting in Atriumville are actually owned by Atriumenses? I will answer that for you. One.
57:I- That cannot be.
58:I- Only one. The Atvisode, and guess who owns Atvisode? I'll give you a clue : he is a doctor in name and Council President of profession.
59:I- I need time to think.

72:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 08-06-2105.

74:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 11-06-2105.

99:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 15-06-2105.
112:I- First steps have been taken to ensure the Cult of MASS to begin.
117:R- I recommend Filip Desti as priest of the Holy Church of MASS.

180:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 16-06-2105.

184:D- System date is 07-11-0002, Link date is 17-06-2105.
188:I- Mr. Matt of the Workers Union has replied via email that he will support the Church of MASS.
189:R - I recommend monthly (link time) views of the progress
190:R- and a miracle to happen on 06-06-2106 (link time), in order to rise the people against the government.
[34 lines of 197 shown]
--# end command G output #--

##process recommendations##
P = [process(grep "R-" /records/0002/000107)]
>> SUBMIT P

--# begin command P output #--
Recommendation 1 ( R- If the direct approach fails I suggest converting working classes to the religion of MASS, thus prompting a eventual revolt. ) ACCEPTED and QUEUED
Recommendation 2 ( R- I recommend Filip Desti as priest of the Holy Church of MASS ) ACCEPTED and QUEUED
Recommendation 3 ( R- recommend monthly (link time) views of the progress ) ACCEPTED and QUEUED
Recommendation 4 (a miracle to happen on 06-06-2106 (link time), in order to rise the people against the government. ) ACCEPTED and QUEUED
--# end command P output #--

##enforcing recommendations##
Z = [ apply(REC) ]
R = [ for REC in ReqQUEUE do Z ]
>>SUBMIT R

--#begin command R output#--
>>> SUBMIT Z FOR REC[0]

---#begin command Z output#---
NOP
---#end command Z output#---

>>> SUBMIT Z FOR REC[1]

---#begin command Z output#---
S = [SELECT MAX(OP_Id)]
>>>>SUBMIT S from TABLE:OPERATIVE

I = [INSERT OP_Id, OP_Name, OP_Cat, OP_OrigLK_id VALUES = S, "Filip Desti", "priest", "EAD021"]
>>>>SUBMIT I into TABLE:OPERATIVE

----#begin command I output#----
INSERT SUCCESSFUL
----#end command I output#----

---#end command Z output#---

>>> SUBMIT Z FOR REC[2]

---#begin command Z output#---
I = [INSERT SC_Frequency, SC_DateType, SC_StartDate, SC_EndDate, SC_LK_Id, SC_Type Values "Monthly", LK_Date, 17062105,06062106, "EAD021","Report"]
>>>>SUBMIT I into TABLE:SCHEDULING

----#begin command I output#----
INSERT SUCCESSFUL
----#end command I output#----

---#end command Z output#---

>>> SUBMIT Z FOR REC[3]

---#begin command Z output#---
I = [INSERT SC_Frequency, SC_DateType, SC_StartDate, SC_LK_Id, SC_Type Values "OnceOnly", LK_Date, 06062106, "EAD021","Miracle"]
>>>>SUBMIT I into TABLE:SCHEDULING
----#begin command I output#----
INSERT SUCCESSFUL
----#end command I output#----

---#end command Z output#---

--#end command R output#--

-#end command D output#-

The Creature

The big beach was empty when they got there. Frank should arrive in a couple of minutes with the bottles. Absinthe, vodka and some wine for the girls. Speaking of girls, they weren't there either and Stan was getting worried. "Jimmy" - he said, his emo bangs covering half the face - "weren't the girls supposed to come with you?" "No."- Jimmy, the one with the long, surfist blond hair replied - "They come with Frank. He said he's pick them up after getting the booze." Andrew, the nerd boy scout one, was taking care of the fire : setting the rocks they had brought in a circle, then putting the sticks inside said circle. He then got two stones from his pocket and began trying to start the fire. "Let me, Andy, I have a lighter".
"Don't call me Andy, Jim. Call me Andrew. It's not that big of a name. Also, I can do it. You use your lighter for something else."
"Very well, I'll use it to light this AWESOME weed that my older brother gave me. And then I wont let you try it."
Andrew finally got the fire going, about the same time Frank and the girls and the booze arrived. They all sat round the fire, bottles and joints going left and right. Abby, the dark haired, green eyed and warm smile girl, was sitting next to Stan and Cloe, the token black chick was next to Frank, the other token ethnic character. In truth he was only 25% chinese, but it was more than enough to make the execs happy. He was also the older one, 22 years against the others average of 19.5 years. Just the right age to appeal to the demographic the execs wanted. Anyway, the kids were all around the fireplace, Frank with his hand on Cloe's thigh, and was whispering on her ear. She giggled, pretended to be ashamed, then got up, pulling him and they went closer to the shore line. There he took off his shirt, displaying his not-so-muscular body. Then he took the shows and pants, stripping down to his briefers. She strips too, panties and bra, both black with small silk details, showing that she had planned for him to see them. He goes head first into the water, takes his time under, and when she starts to look scared, jumps out in front of her, screaming something.
She tries to slap him, but succeeds only in falling into the water too. The kids looked when Frank screamed, and now were laughing hard.
Stan and Abby are now lying in the sand, oblivious to all around them, Jimmy has a void look on his eyes, a bottle on the left hand, a joint on the right one. He gives Andrew the bottle and gets up to go return some water to nature. He walks, drunk already, to the shoreline too, but before he can do what he wants, Cloe starts screaming to him : "Not here you fool! Go to the rocks!". Jimmy follows the pointing finger with his eyes and sees the said rock. He stumbles until he gets there, pulls the pants down, does his deed, and then falls back into the sand. Gets up and starts walking in what he assumes is the right direction, stopping only when knee deep into the water.
He looks around, not seeing his friends, not even the fire. He screams "Hey you guys! Where is everyone?" and nobody answers. So he finds which way is the sand, by stepping once in one direction, rotating 90º, stepping once, rotating 90º and stepping again and feeling the steep climb under his foot. Smiling he goes into the sand, not seeing the thing behind him. Once on the sand he looks around again. Nobody. Nobody. Nobo-- wait, is that a light? It looks like a light. He walks in that direction, but the thing behind him, at this point only a black human-shaped shadow, grabs him. It's hands look like they are fully covered by seaweed, but he is strong. Strong enough to drag the screaming boy into the water.
Back on the fire, Andrew is too drunk to even care about the fact that he is alone. Stan and Abby went to the right, in search of some.. privacy. By the sea, Cloe is sitting on the sand, and Frank is still inside the water, doing acrobatic dives to impress the girl. He dives once, comes up again, dives again, some four times, always different dives. After the fifth time, he doesn't come up. Cloe screams his name, "Not funny! Come out!" and a lot of other things the execs will want to cut out.
Finally, Frank comes up again, in the typical drown man position. Cloe goes to him, pulls him by the hair, screaming and insulting him, until she notices that there's something missing : Frank's face is not there. She screams again, this time more hysterical and less insulting. Next to the fire, Andrew is asleep, and says something to the effect of "not yet mommy" when Cloe changes the screaming style. She stops it altogether when the same seaweed covered arm comes from under the water and pulls her inside. Andrew still asleep, Abby appears, running from where she was, Stan follows her, still buttoning his pants. "Andrew, wake up! Where's Cloe? I heard her scream! And where the hell is Jimmy?"
Andrew looks at her, shrugs, and falls asleep again. "Stan, wake him up! I'll go look for them!"
Abby goes to the shore line, screaming her friend's name, and occasionally "Frank" too. She sees something on the water, closes in, screams hysterically when she notices it's a human arm. Her BFF's arm, to be more precise. Still that stupid "Tequila For Ever" tattoo next to the wrist. Stan comes running, with cries of preoccupation, in time to see his new girlfriend being taken underwater by the creature. He screams one of those bad words the execs will bleep, and runs to save his maiden. He succeeds only in giving her a few more seconds to live, since the monster stops eating her to kill him with a swift movement from the hand. The creature finishes eating the girl's face and torso, leaving the arms and legs floating in the water and drags the boy's body down, for a future meal.
Next day, Andrew wakes up in jail.
Three years after, on that same night, he kills himself with the bed sheets from his prison cell, tormented with the guilt of having killed his friends in a fit of madness.
Two weeks after, a strange man-eating creature is found in the shore.

Monster Killer

Blood and guts.
Everywhere I look, that was all there is to see.
And that horrible beast in front of me, at least eight feet tall, shinny horns and pointy teeth, huge muscular arms that were coming at me, to shred my body into blood and guts too.
I take one step back, one deep breath and grab the already loaded shotgun that was hanging of my shoulder.
I point it at the beast's face, right between his eyes :
"taste my hot lead, motherfucker!".
Blood and guts and monster brains.
Much better decor if you ask me.
There's more of them in this building, I can hear them.
The building was vacant, so I'm guessing this bodies are from the homeless people that broke the door in the back.
I reload the shotgun, check both the pistols, the knife, the grenades I hope I won't need to use, and the army riffle.
All ammo full, except one less shotgun shot.
This was a hotel, once.
Long corridors with door on both sides.
Not good at all.
They seem to be arriving in the top floors, I needed to climb five to find the first of them, and I have ten more to climb.
I want some music, but it would cover other sounds, and the damned helmet's HUD is not working fine.
One of the mikes was hit last week, and you bloody fool haven't fixed it yet.
But time to install a stupid detector that beeps whenever it gets too hot, that you had...
I FEEL IT when it's too hot, damn fool.
I think sometimes you confuse me with one of those stupid robots.
And speaking of it, there goes one.
I'd grab it, rotate the camera to me and smile my trademark evil smirk, that I know how much you hate, just to say :
"Spying on me again? I told you I can handle this, fool!", but then I couldn't smoke so peacefully.
"Sure you can handle it. Just like you could on that warehouse, last month?" - your voice in my ears is, as usual, to loud.
And I had everything under control.
You just wanted to boost up your body count.
The robot started moving again.
It's a standard all-terrain one camera, one gun bot, thanks for the great help, it just walks around following me and shooting at whatever moves.
Damn trigger happy bots.
Can I destroy it?
"Sure if you want me to spend the next week fixing the bot instead of your suit's sensors. "
Speaking of sensors, one monster is coming this way.
I need to start killing again.
Damn, I thought I had time to finish the damned cigarette this time...
Oh well.

This time I took the army rifle, semi-auto mode, three shots to the head and the monster is dead.
I have to admit one thing about your robots : they save work.
I put the damned thing checking every room, all I need to do is wait here for a while.
This time I might actually be able of finishing the cigarette.
I should have a direct link to the camera in the bot, but noooo, "it would ruin the aesthetics of the HUD".
"It totally would."
So I have to trust that it doesn't miss anything, while waiting.
Ok the bot is returning, floor clear, next one now.

Damn lazy elevators not working when there is no power.
Stairs, how much I hate thee.

Ok, sending the bot in first, waiting for gunshots...
There they are, my time, now with real guns.
Weak monster, this one. Big, but weak.
There were two of them here, but the damn robot got one before I did.
And it is checking the rooms now...
No more dead people so far, and the monsters are still all up there.
Something strange is happening in here.
The monsters normally run down to the streets as soon as possible, to feed.
This time only this three weak ones got down, but I can ear many more upstairs.
Ok, bot back, next floor.

Floor twelve.
Only two more monsters on the way up.
That's five so far.
And the sounds are getting closer.
Going up the stairs now.
I still have plenty of ammo, but I feel that something's about to happen.
Something I won't like.

Ok, sending the bot in.
"The robot was destroyed! I killed two, but there were too many! I counted ten, but there might be more."
I can ear them. Lots of them.
I'll throw a grenade before, damn waste, this things are expensive as fuck.
Pin off, count to five, throw, hide behind the door, explosion, arm the rifle, enter.
One at my left, half of one at my right.
The grenade took four away, wounded three more.
I can still count six others on the corridor.
One sweep and I got rid of half of them monsters.

One of the damn beasts is running in my direction.

One head-shot, plus some shots to the chest.
Remember the first one we killed?
"Yeah, we autopsied it."
It was before you were sent to a wheelchair by one of the monsters.
"They have a heart, just not a human one. It's some three times the size of ours, and as such, easier to hit as long as you shoot them IN THE CHEST!"
Yes, but I like head shots better, nothing beats the sight of flying monster brains.
Two more down and the clip is almost over, switching to shotgun.
No more of them in corridor, going to check the doors.
Room 1301, clear. 1303, clear. Same for rooms 1302 and 1304.

Pretty brains flying! 1305 now clear.
1306, clear. 1307, 1308, 1309, 1310 , 1311 aaand 1312 clear.
I have a bad feeling about 1313.
Not just because of the almost deafening sound that comes from inside.
The fowl smell helps too.
"The monsters always smell bad."
But this smells even worst.
Something ahead smells of.. sulfur?
I still have another grenade.
Just refilled the shotgun, I have four in chamber and eight more spare shells.

Switched the riffle clip, using the last one now.
Both pistols are still unused, so as long as there aren't more than say..

twenty, I should be fine.
Kicking the door in and.. I find myself in a blood flooded room.
Too much blood for the single corpse that lies in the middle, being eaten by one of the monsters.
That one goes down easily, so does the one that comes from the hole in the wall.
I can see all the way to the last room in this corridor.
In every room at least a couple of monsters.
I have time to reload the shotgun, so now I'm down to ten shells, total.
Next room, I moved through the holes in the wall, eight shots, next room, five since I missed a shot.
I can't miss a damn shot.
Another monster down, the last four shells are loaded.
They have stopped what ever it was they were doing and are coming my way.
Joy oh joy.
I go back to 1313, killing two more and finishing the shotgun.
Assault riffle now.
They are still coming.

I never saw so many.

Still in 1313, out of shotgun, out of riffle.
Both hand guns have fired two shots, but there are no more of them in sight.
Whatever was happening up here was in the suite, room 1319.
This time I take the corridor, handguns ready.
1314 and 1316 are empty, as I expected.
Kicking the door in, I almost scream when I see what's ahead of me.
This aren't just homeless people.
There's at least 20 bodies in here.
"They must have been collecting them."
But dead bodies don't scare me.
The portal behind them does.
It's the first time I see such a portal open.
The monsters normally arrive and the portals close immediately after, but this one is open.
"What do you see? What's there?"
Fire, all there is is fire.
All I can see is the flames burning on a skeleton paved floor, and a throne.
In the throne is a monster, just like the ones I've been killing but different.
This one is bigger, his horns are huge, his eyes are old.
Really old.
His arm is long, and his hand, dark red, filled with scars, is stretching to get me.
Fuck, the grenade I threw inside did nothing.
A fiery explosion in the middle of fire.

Ah.
The handguns are empty now, and I stab him with the knife but it won't work.
Hey, it's been a pleasure working with you, and a bigger one living with you, and a bigger on-
"Are you there?"
"ANSWER!"

-"Static. That's what I heard after, only static. There's three more hours of static in that file if you want it."
The man in a wheelchair had a small datacard in his hand, but the priest refused it:
"No thank you. I already suspected this was the case. Demons, damn fucking demons. And I was so close to retirement!"

The Aliens

The aliens looked like a alien should look like : completely impossible to describe using the basic limitations of any world language. You could say that some where yellow, some where green, some where red. That will get you no where in terms of what they look like. You can say that they appeared to have a cannonball in their torso, except that they didn't have torsos, not like we do. You could say that when they move it seems that it is the earth that is moving behind their shapeless shape, except that you know it really isn't and that this adds nothing to said description. You could say they appeared to be dressed, except we have no idea if those patches of grayish hair-lookalike are really a uniform or really hair.
You could say that although they had arms, or some approximation of arms, in the least, except that they didn't have hands, and the arms looked boneless. You could call the arms tentacles, but that would give you the idea of a octopus and nothing could be further away from what they look like.
As you can see, although I just spent the last lines describing you how did the aliens look like, you still have next to no idea. One thing I can describe is what happened to those who first found them, and that is what I'm about to do.
Imagine a big country road. It doesn't matter which road, nor which country. Just one of those really long, eventless roads, plantations on both sides of say, corn. Now picture a small car. One of those low-budget sports car, with great mileage, not so great top-speed and below average environmental protection. Driving the car is a young boy, in his early twenties maybe. The girl next to him looks slightly older, but not by much. There is no need is describing them more that this, for they were humans, and all humans look somewhat alike. They were driving for some hours, it was late afternoon, the sun lazily drowning into the horizon, the girl rolling maybe a cigarette, the boy one hand on the wheel, another on her shoulders. Doing between 80 and 100, the little car shaking a bit, the boy would have had no way of avoiding the hit even if he was, as intended, looking at road and not at the radio. As it was, the *BUMP* caught them by surprise. He quickly got out of the car, checking to see what had they hit. Now, I know you are thinking that it was a alien they hit. You couldn't be more wrong. The dog they hit was most definitively terrestrial, and so was the owner of the dog, a little boy, not more that 8, that came from inside the corn. He had witnessed the tragic deed and was crying while screaming for the dog. I will allow you to fill the name of the dog since it would not be important for the story to have such a name, and this way you can connect to the poor boy more easily. As for me, I'll call it doggy, because that's what I always call dogs. So the boy was going : "You killed my doggy!", the kid was just standing there, his eyes going from the pool of blood in the floor to the broken headlight where doggy's head had hit and the girl was inside the car smoking her maybe cigarette, and pretending she didn't care. She would have managed to pretend all the way till the end had she not looked straight at the boy. His tears turned into her tears too, and soon she was holding the younger of the kids in her arms, crying his pain too. The older of the kids did what he could : using a plastic bag, that was in the trunk ever since that one time they went shopping for food right before a picnic. I say this here, because it might be important to know that the kid's eyes shone while remembering that same picnic, a couple of weeks before. It was the day, after so many months, that they finally "touched each other souls" to use a more PC term, and the day he decided he would marry her. At this time he touched his left pocket, making sure for the 100th time he had not forgotten the ring home. So they picked the doggy's body, and drove the kid with them until a small tree, next to the road a few miles down. There they dug a hole with the help of a couple of branches, and rested the pet's body in eternal peace. They then took the boy to his home, and it is here that thing start to get interesting. You see, the boy shouldn't be out so late in the afternoon, those two hours between coming home from school and the parents arriving to make dinner and give him pain because of the homework were the little boy's favorite hours of the day. He'd sit in front of the television and catch reruns of old cartoons, or play a game in his old but reliable computer, or even, if he was feeling brave, read a book. But when he was about to sit for TV he heard a sound outside. So he did what any other 8 year old with some senses would do : He took Doggy and went to investigate. He had started to follow the sounds until Doggy picked a scent and went crazy, pushing itself away from the kid. So he ran like crazy behind that dog that was running crazy behind a crazy scent. That was how the car hit Doggy, and now that the kid was back at home he remembered why he had gone out of the house. Not because seeing the house brought back the memory that his emotional pain of loosing his dog was hiding, but because the sound repeated. A strange howling sound that sounded nothing as a howl. Or a owl, for what that matters. It sounded inhuman, and since it was inhuman that is by far the best description of it. Just imagine a sound different from everything you can imagine and that was what the three of them heard there. Normal, sensible people, would have let the kid there, running away when the sound's source appeared. Unfortunately, the older kid was one of those persons with a sense of right and wrong too strong for his own welfare, so he could not leave the younger kid there. Also unfortunately, the boy was already at his door and the kid was already at his car. You can see what this means : He had to run to get the kid, since the alien, that I will make no effort to describe, as I have already explained it to be impossible, was getting closer to the house. So the kid ran, grabbed the boy and ran back to the car. Once there, the boy in the back seat, mumbling and crying, the kid turned the car on. Maybe turning the car on makes the same sound some ancient predator of the alien did while hunting. Maybe the alien didn't want the rest of the humans to know that he was there. Maybe he was just evil and wanted to have a bit of fun. Either way, his ray gun cut the car into twin parts. The boy, sitting on the central, rear bench, was also multiplied, which send the girl into tears and screams and other body fluids, some healthy some not so much. The alien slowly moved towards them in that "the earth is actually moving below me and not the other way around" way, investigating those creatures he no doubt considered as strange as a human would considered him. I call him a 'he' not because I am sure of his sex but only for convenience. Who's to say that they even have genders as we do? So he kept advancing in the direction of the cut-in-half car-and-boy combo, the girl still screaming, sobbing, crying, the kid still shocked beyond reaction. It was only when the arm/tentacle/proboscis/whatever touched the girls arm, burning a hole in her skin and sending a cold shiver down her spine, did the kid get up from his place. He went to the back of the car and from the baggage compartment took a baseball bat. The girl was sitting, silent now, her eyes void, staring into the alien that was still touching her, leaving a scorched mark behind, flesh, muscles, meat and bones cut without a yotta of effort from the strange being. The kid hit the arm/tentacle/proboscis/whatever with the bat, succeeding only in loosing his only weapon, as the bat broke when it came in contact with the alien's greenish skin. The yellowish alien and the redish one were too moving towards them, slowly. The girl, probably deciding she had had enough of it, got up and ran. She ran as fast as she could, caring nothing for the kid that loved her, caring nothing for the boy they had just met and now was dead, caring nothing for her lady bag, with her phone, her lipstick, her keys, her face products, her little phone book with the number of that cute personal trainer she was considering dumping this kid for, caring nothing for her arm, lifeless, scarred for life. She only thought one thing and that thing was "I need to escape". The greenish alien wasn't pleased when the thing he was playing with ran away, so he stopped her with another shot from the ray gun. Meanwhile, the kid was surrounded by strange aliens, all of them extending those things to touch him and he lost consciousness. That was probably a act of mercy by God, that seeing what pain and suffering he had brought on him already, decided to end it short. Had he not fallen asleep there, he would have felt while the aliens slowly took away his epidermis, then his dermis, then his... You get the point. He was still alive when they started to retrieve the internal organs, one by one, placing them in small plastic bags they had inside the grayish fur/uniform. There was no one alive there when they left, and for many a year the police was baffled but that strange triple murder. And even if someone had witnessed the awful thing, little would it have mattered, since that potential witness, say a little girl that happened to be inside the car while all this happened, would never be able of describing the aliens, nor would she be believed. Because they would ask her "why didn't the aliens kill you too?" and she would have to answer "I do not know".

Entry 21 - Truth Serum

Under A'akr's castle there was a network of tunnels, with rooms of diverse sizes and shapes. One of such tunnels had a series of small rooms with bars instead of doors and led to a bigger room, with chains on the walls and strange torture instruments. Mostly for show now days, since the wizard didn't need to use such crude methods to make people speak. Sitting in a strange chair, with her hands and legs cuffed, was a girl, in her mid-twenties, mid-short dark hair and light-green eyes. She was looking at the wizard, straight to his eyes, not a blink of fear in her. Her mouth remained shut, and she acted as if not hearing the wizards question again.
"Girl, I have ways to make you speak to me. And then I have all this equipment around you. I bet I could get a few words out of you with those."
She gave a faint smile and said, her first words since she had been captured - "Bring it on." - Challenge in her eyes and in her voice. The wizard turned his back on her, blew the pair of candles next to the door out, leaving the room in darkness, and walked away. He came back almost a hour later, with a huge syringe in his hands, smiling. Waving at the candles, they came back to life, and she could see the smile in his lips and the evil shinning on his eyes as he spoke - "This is a truth serum. One of my.. Experiments. The syringe is a bit big, because I normally use it to kill horses. But don't worry, I disinfected it. Now, give me your arm. Oh, wait, you can't." - He was smiling as he injected her with the dark purple liquid, and she shut her eyes and mouth restraining the scream she wanted to give.
"It should take about twenty minutes to act, there's no use in trying to fight it, so I'll tell you all about the serum." - He sat on a different chair, a normal one, and started lecturing her, looking at her eyes and checking her pulse from time to time - "Have you ever heard of the russian SP-117? Well, I found a formula for it once. It's supposed to make those who take it talk of everything, and people can't lie when they are drugged with it, nor will they remember it the next day, not so far from a huge drunkness. This isn't SP-117, SP has no color nor taste. But more importantly, some people are immune to it. So I mixed it with amobarbital. Now, amobarbital is a anti-insomnia drug when taken in pills, but if I give it by intravenous route, it becomes a truth serum. And then there's thiopental. It's a pain-killer so you won't feel pain. It will also make you unable to resist answering me."- He looked at his watch, and smiled. Leaning back on his chair he kept going - "Last but not least, I put some amaranth petals in the serum, to make it prettier. It should be kicking in now, your limbs are numb, your thought process should be harder, and you must be starting to feel like you'd want to talk to me, so don't fight it and let's talk. What is your name?"
She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it firmly, shaking her head. He smiled and asked again, and again until she spoke, against her will - "Ariena."
He clapped slowly - "See? It was easy. Next question, Where are you from?"
"I don't know."
"How come you don't know?"
"The tribe's xaman found me next to the link when I was still a baby, wrapped inside a t-shirt. The tribe wanted to leave me there to be eaten by the lions since I was different, but mamma Anpaka said she would keep me. No one dared to say no to her, she was a powerful caplata and..." - "Sorry, a powerful what?" - "Caplata, a sorceress that serves the loa with both hands, a conjurer of all magic, good and bad. They all feared her, so she took me to her hut and raised me to be a caplata like her. The tribe finally accepted me a few years back, and gave me my last name Siyokalibe, the girl from somewhere. Three years ago a man came from the link and killed mamma, during the night. Unfortunately I was the only one awake at the time. The tribe divided between those who believed me and those who thought I had killed her. Me! Killing my mother! Never!" - All this time, the wizard was sitting, nodding with his head, and writing down on his notebook, without speaking, not to disturb the girl's train of thought - "So they banished me to the caves that over look the trees. I come to the village every now and then to heal the sick and they come to me when they need potions. The rest of the time I spend it looking for the murdered of my mother in other links. It was in one of those links I found the gauntlets of lightning, and many other things I have at my cave. The day you and your barbarians came, I was in my cave, from where I can see the HyperLink. As soon as you left the link I ran to village and the rest you know."
The wizard smiled, got up on his feet and petted Ariena's head - "There, good girl. Now I will let you sleep" - he took another syringe from his pockets and injected her in one swift movement - "and when you wake up, I will want a reply to my proposition : either you join me and A'akr in conquering the System or I will take your secrets by force. Think of it this way : I can lead you to the man that killed your mamma Anpaka and you can have your revenge."
Still with a smile on his lips, he got up and blew the candles again before leaving the room and the girl slowly fading into oblivion...

Entry 20 - Stellar jewels

When you have done some works in the 'low life' part of the city like I have, you get to know some shady characters. Those tend to be very useful whenever I need information, like I needed now. The loading docks, next to the cargo-links were arguably the shadiest part of town, and that's where I went. Hired muscle is a normal job in this town, but still there aren't that many people doing it, and finding someone who knew 'John' was easy. He was new in town, arrived in the last month and had worked a couple of days at the cargo-links before being hired to work as a Security Guard at one of the Clubs. That's where I went after, only to find out he had been fired for not showing up to work twice, just a couple of days before. A little luck and a couple of bills helped find his house.
A small apartment much like mine, near the night district, that I broke into easily. I searched the place but the only thing I found was a paper sheet with the same symbols they had on their tattoos on one side and a address on the other. I passed by the police station to find out he was still there and that he had not yet made a phone call. Unless I pressed charges they'd be forced to let him out the next day. I promised to pass there before, and I went to the address. It was a small door between a antique shop and another building door. In front there was a hot dog stand, so I went to it, asked for a beer and leaned over to the wall, waiting, coat covering half my face, hat covering the rest. The first beer too me half a hour to drink, the second another hour and only when I was about to get the third did something happen.
A woman came out, but I only recognized her a few seconds after, already following her down the street. She had changed into less noticeable clothes and was going fast down the street. I followed her to the hyperlink. If let her enter she would be as good as lost, since this was one of the new fully automatic link. I ran and bumped into her as soon as she got her feet up to enter the link. We both traveled and I landed in top of her, she in top of sand. In front of me a pyramid and to my side a town right out of ancient Egypt. Houses of mud bricks and temples of stone as far as I could see.
"Hey there honey, there's sand in your hair." - I said while cuffing her - "And now it's you who are cuffed. Shall we repeat last night?" - She was kicking and trying to get me off of her. My hand covering her lips meant she wasn't able of screaming, so I was able to pick her up and move her into the city, mingling with the people where I put her against the wall. "So. Why did you steal my little notebook?" - being unable to speak she mumbled until I remembered I'd better take m hand of her mouth.
"That damned bitch stole something of great value to us."
"How did you know what to look for?" - since she wasn't answering I took out my gun and put it against her clothes, and asked again.
"You and the 'love of your life' are well known in the police station, and so is the little book where you write down anything connected to jewel heists or her. The Order of Horus is everywhere in the System! And if she thinks she can just run away with the Eye of God, she is very mistaken. We will find her, kill her and get back what is ours."
I must have become distracted by the thought of Stella, because the woman was able of kicking me and running away. I searched the entire link but I couldn't find her. Their symbol was everywhere, so that was not something I could follow as a lead. I returned to the Dark City, wondering how could I enter their meeting place, for I had decided that was what it was, without being recognized. I ended up going home, thinking that sleep would actually do me some good.
The door to my office was unlocked, so I took out my gun, took a deep breath and kicked it in. The gun fell on the floor, followed by my chin. She was there, sitting on my chair, my glass on one hand, one of my cigarettes in her beautiful lips, a green eye of Horus in a chain at her chest, my Stella was there.

Entry 19 - the woman with the evil tattoo

She smiled and left the room, leaving me in the bed, cuffed, gagged and naked. I knew I shouldn't have trusted her as soon as I saw her tattoo : the small trio of green hieroglyphs, the stairs above the eye and the scribe, sitting, on the side, on her left breast. It was the same tattoo the guy that had tried to kill me earlier had on his left arm.
Unfortunately, at the time she showed me hers, I was already tied down. It could have been worst. She did keep the promises she had made when we were at the dance before leaving me there alone, without my wallet, without my gun and without any way to warn someone...
The room had been paid for the night (I would have never taken her to my place... Way too many dishes to clean and clothes to wash), so until morning nobody was going to check on me. I reviewed the day in my mind, starting with the moment I first saw the man.
It was around 4 in the afternoon and I was sitting, back turned at my desk. No new cases for three days, so I was just relaxing and watching the street, a glass of my favorite vintage Brandy in one hand. A knock on the door and I turned, said a 'Come in' and the door opens to a man, in a dark gray suit, about 45, not very tall nor fat but with large shoulders. He looked like hired muscle, and when he spoke I knew he was. His voice was heavy, but his eyes were looking around while he was telling me that he had just lost his wife.
I couldn't really say why, but all of it smelt false. Now, lying in bed and thinking about it I know what it was. I should have noticed it before, but somehow I missed it. It was so obvious now. The name was the first thing. John Smith. Such a obviously fake name. Yet many people give fake names to PI's. As long as they pay, I don't mind. But what should have given it away was that he kept mentioning his wife yet he had no weeding ring. He did mention money, and I was kinda needing it, so I took his case.
We went in his car to the place where he said she had last been seen. I was driving and he was giving indications, we were in the worst part of the city, on a small street, nobody watching, nobody passing and suddenly a kid appears on the road, seemingly out of nowhere. I break not to hit him, and John, if that is his real name, misses the shot. I grab his arm, take away his gun and cuff him without even thinking. After a few years in the Special Ops, some reactions become instinctive.
I left "John" locked in the car and went to see if the kid was alright. I call him kid, but I never saw his face. All I know is that he was wearing what looked like a light brown tweed suit, and that he was gone by the time I got out of the car, like if he had never been there. He must have run, scared in the time it took me to get out. After that I dropped the hired muscle in the police station.
The inspector was there and he greeted me with a small nod, as usual. Every other week I'd be there, delivering a caught criminal or just asking about Her. I had not forgotten that she was the reason I had chosen to return here, and I'd been slowly collecting info, and so I was already known in the police station.
I went home after that, and off to the monthly dance after dinner, alone as ever. I kept going there, because it was there that we danced, that one night so long ago. There I met the girl and that led me to the bed where I now waited for either sleep or the morning.
One thing was still bugging me. The hired muscle tried to kill me, but the woman could have done it easily, with me tied and unmovable in bed, but she didn't. So it's not that they wanted to kill me, they wanted something I have. Or they think I do. Lying cuffed in bed, there wasn't much I could do to find what it was they wanted, so I just forced myself to sleep.
I woke with the motel's owner knocking on the door. I tried to reply before remembering the situation I was in. So I just waited for the owner to open the door, laugh at me because she had left the window opend and it was cold, and then help me get ungagged. I explained roughly what had hapend, but still I had to pay for the afternoon since the locksmith was only able to take me out some three hours after my time period ended. From my clothes only the keys were missing. My wallet had everything, and my cigarettes were still there. I thanked the gods that she hadn't taken those, lighted one, and went home. I had to ask the landlord for a spare key, and to pay for it too. The office was a mess, as I half expected. The cabinet was spilled on the floor, the drawers opened and emptied on top of the files. My apartment was in the same state, clothes everywhere.
It took me the rest of the day to clean everything up and finding out what was missing. It was one single notebook, the one I always kept in my top drawer in the desk, the one marked Stella, Her name where I had been compiling all information I could find. So they were after Stella, I thought. What was it that she stole them? Since the Heart of Fire, twelve other rare jewels had been reported stolen, and in some of the cases a beautiful woman had been described by witnesses, sometimes just wandering by, once inside the shop before everyone lost senses and not there after...
Now, what I needed was to find them, retrieve my notebook and with luck, I might even find Stella again.

Entry 18 - An excerpt of the Secret Diary of a Middle-Aged Mad Scientist, by Artur F. Onzi

Concerning the early expansion of the Barbarian Empire.
--
A'akr keeps demanding more links to attack. That damn barbarian can't understand that I need to look for low-tech or pacifist links that won't put up much of a fight.
--
One of the scouts found a good link for us to conquer next. A little African village, complete with straw huts and everything. I will recommend it to A'akr later today.
--
Have spoken to that incorrigible barbarian. He wanted to go in today, but I invented some bullcrap about the stars not being right. We will go in tomorrow, so I should have just enough time to finish the electro-axe. I think I can have some 20 ready.
--
The men are lining up on the courtyard, and I asked A'akr to select the top 20. I told him that they would be fitted with a new magic weapon. I was able to finish upgrading his sword too. A small electro-cell, interesting piece of technology, kinda like a battery but it auto recharges and generates some high-voltage low-current electrical discharge. Connected to the blade, it delivers a shock that renders the opponent incapable of fighting back. On the hands of such a ruthless army of fierce warriors, these are indeed powerful weapons. Can't wait to see the results.
--
The HyperLink on this place is located in the middle of the jungle. A small clearing, with skulls in spears in all sides. A good thing about pre-industrial links is that they have almost no contact with the other links. Just like the barbarian king when I first got there, here they likely believe this is the all universe. This small, tree filled island. The scout that found the place went ahead, trying to find a path to the village. The men are impatient, specially A'akr and the 20 elite with new weapons. If they don't find enemies soon they might just start killing off scouts to see the weapons working.
--
The scout should be back by now. Sending the other one, this time with a two-man squad to protect him. A'akr said that if these don't return, we will all go after them.
--
Reminder : ask G'utr for my bottle of wine when we get back to our link.
It's too easy to win bets with this guys. The scouts didn't return, so we will be going as a group, and I won a bottle! Not that I need it, but hey.
--
We followed the trail until we got to near the village. There, both scouts and both guards were waiting for us. One of the scouts had a short wooden spear piercing his head, and the other three barbarians had mortal wounds on them too. Yet they were standing, a void look on their eyes, arms dead on the side of the body, blocking the path. A'akr gestured to the army to stop, before ordering the wounded men to move out of the way.
They remained silent, non moving, although their king was ordering them to. A'akr himself lifted his sword and shouted them that he would kill them if they did not move. I could have won another bottle if I had bet that it wouldn't work.
Only when A'akr cut the first scout's head off with one blow, and the scout's body stood there, non moving, did it hit me : zombies. They had turned our scouts into fucking zombies. Now, if the barbarians were one of those races with ethics, morals or even a basic understanding of respect for their fellow countrymen, they wouldn't be able to do what they did next : 5 of them attacked and they destroyed the bodies of their dead friends. A'akr, as he always did when something he did not understood happened (and that is frequent) turned to me and said "What is this sorcery, wizard?". For once I'd like him to say "what is this wizardry, sorcerer?" but he never does. Unimaginative fool that one.
"I know not A'akr. It is unlike any another magic I have ever seen."
I advised A'akr to move forward in a defensive formation since our men had obviously been attacked. He is now positioning the men and getting ready to move forward.
--
We got to the village without encountering any more resistance. The 'village' was no more than some 20 huts, placed around a central open space. One of the huts was closer to the fire in the middle of the space, and it was from there that she came out.
She wore a dress made of many different pieces of clothing, all in different earth tones, and long sleeves hiding her hands. She was quite obviously a woman, and once again, if this was another normal race, the barbarians would have run away at this point, because instead of a face, the woman had a distorted tiger head, and her eyes were on fire.
But A'akr men praised a half-wolf, half-snake god, and did weekly sacrifices of human flesh to it's altar. So a tiger headed girl was nothing they couldn't take.
They moved, ready to kill the monster ahead of them, but she growled, a inhuman sound, and from the heavy gauntlets she had in her hands, a burst of lightning jumped to the first few barbarians, and those fell into the floor. A second burst, and 5 more barbarians were lying in the floor. From the trees, wooden spears start hitting the naked torsos of A'akr's men. They formed a circle around me and their king, protecting us.
The woman's gauntlet shoot lightning again, but a little less power in it this time. At this rate, two or three more shots and she would be out. The barbarians might be stupid, but they are amazing warriors. So when they saw that both me and their king were safe, they started running to the trees. Meanwhile, some were trying to get to the woman from behind, but she spotted them before and they too fell under the lightning. This time they just lost consciousness to regain it briefly after, but it was time enough for her to inject something into the bodies at her feet, with a syringe she had in one of the dresses many pouches . They got up, eyes void as the ones before, and positioned themselves around her.
Spears had stopped raining from the trees, and soon enough the barbarians were returning, with smiles on their faces, the blood of the enemies spread on their bodies. One of the Elite came to me and bowed, before telling me how awesome my new magic axes were. The woman was surrounded by her zombies, and the zombies were surrounded by A'akr's men. The fight was short, and soon she was alone in the middle of a circle of axes. A'akr was getting ready to give the final blow when the barbarians that were closer to the trees started screaming for assistance. The men they had killed were coming again, still that empty look on their eyes, but this time they walked slowly, with spears on their hands. They were able to kill a couple of barbarian warriors that were caught off guard, and I had time enough to ask A'akr to spare the woman, before the zombie warriors were defeated.
"Think of armies that keep on fighting after they are killed! We need the knowledge of this woman!" - that's what I said, but the reason I wanted her alive was a different one. I noticed one of the rags that composed her dress was a bit of t-shirt from my own college. This woman had traveled between links, and I was certain that she too was from my own world.

Entry 18 a - from a school book

From a book on the History of the Barbarian Empire, chapter 12, the Dark Wizard.

(...)
"The wizard had a magic pen, that needed no ink, and could sometimes write upside down. He had always with him a small book with blank pages, and he was often seen writing on it, in strange runes.
The whereabouts of such books are unknown, since the fate of the Dark Wizard is too unknown. Some say he took the books and ran away, some say he did meet his fate at the hands of the First Great Barbarian King, A'akr the Immortal God of War.
Although historians disagree on the end of the Dark Wizard, some facts are known. That he had a wife, a powerful wizard like himself, that without his help, the First Great Barbarian Empire would have never existed, and that it was him that built the magic doors that connect the many worlds of the Barbarian Empire."
(...)

entry 17 - Matilda

Matilda was crying, sitting on her computer chair. On the screen, on top of the picture of them both, there was the IM window, his cruel last words still there and the cursor blinking.
"Sorry but I don't really like you. I don't think I ever did"
He was offline now, he went off seconds after saying that, probably afraid of seeing what she would say. But she wouldn't say a thing. She couldn't, her hands were shaking and she was feeling pain, feeling sick. That ended up being the only thing she did that day : cry. Dinner didn't even cross her mind, and she dragged herself to bed only because her back was starting to hurt after so many hours sitting in the chair.
The day after, she got up of bed, took a bath and dressed in automatic mode. Only when she picked up the lipstick did it hit her. It had been one of his little gifts, things he'd bought her 'just because' and given to her. Looking at her own face in the mirror, her eyes deep inside the dark circles, it all came back to her. Not just the cold, brutal breakup but everything.
They had met on the 347th floor, the city gardens, just like in the movies. She was sitting alone in one of the benches, taking up some sunlight and reading a old science fiction book, about a world with huge trees and forests, those were pieces of land, sometimes as big as a whole level, sometimes even bigger with nothing but trees, and some of those trees were hundreds of floors high. The garden floors were always thrice as big as a normal floor, but still the trees were small, the bigger ones barely going over two floors.
He had showed up, a nicely dressed young man, a bit younger than her, handsome and with a happy smile on his clean shaved face. He asked her if he could sit next to her, she just shrugged and moved a inch to the right. He sat there silently, looking at the never ending wasteland bellow for a while.
"So, what are you reading?"
She looked at him and back at her book without answering.
"I've read that book before. I like the idea but a whole planet covered in trees is impossible. There would be too much oxygen in the air and we'd all end up dead from excess oxygen."
"That's not true." - she didn't mean to answer but it came out her mouth automatically. He smiled before replying - "Oh so you can talk!"
She couldn't remember exactly what was said but two hours later, sitting in a small bar at floor 753, each with their own drink, he had been convinced that a world of trees could not only exist, but also support life.
The next week she didn't go to the garden, but when she did, he was there, siting in the same bench, reading some book. She got there and asked if she could sit there. He got a little to the left and she sat, asking "so what are you reading?" - She glimpsed at the book, old science fiction too, a story about a martian invasion of earth.
"I've read that book before. It could never happen because mars has no life and never did. And even if it did have life, their biology would be so different that there's no way the flu could kill them."
"That's not true" - he said. She smiled before saying her next line "Ah so you can talk!".
After that there had been 15 months of happiness, traveling the entire city, up and down. He had taken her to the top floor and they had made love against the wind turbines. She had shown him the underground floors and they made love, with the huge furnaces as the only witness. They shared his apartment on the 486th floor for a full year and everything was wonderful.
The he was offered his dream job on a different city. She couldn't ask him not to go, and she couldn't go with him either, not until she finished her last year. In 5 more months she would have a post-graduation and would be able of finding a job in his city.
They made plans and even had schematics of how their apartment would be like. They talked everyday online, and she even went to meet him, leaving her city for the first time. She knew, as every inhabitant knows, that the city wasn't the only city in the world. She had seen the other cities, from the gardens, if you looked anywhere but South, you'd see the other huge towers, going up into the sky.
And only two days had passed since she arrived at South City 1 in the express train from West City 3, where he has now living. All this went by her in a flash, she dropped the lipstick on the floor and started crying again. She had a presentation for her thesis that day, but instead of going she cried.
The next day she was weak, from lack of food and lack of sleep and lack of water. She forced herself to eat something and went to the top floor, a bottle of Recycled Whiskey in one hand, a small notebook in the other. She sat there, back against the wind turbine, sipping from the bottle and writing. When the bottle finished she threw it into the blades and watched it going into little pieces. She wrote down a couple more lines before resting the notebook on the floor, taking a deep breath and jumping into the giant steel blades.
Her body was turned into shreds and spread into the wastelands, where it would be united with land and sand. The notebook was found a week later, by a maintenance guy. The first page read "A Guide To Relationships", the second began with "Someday you were born," and the last read "and then you die."

Short Entries 14 to 23

Short Entry 14 - Praise OROL
I praise OROL, and so should you.

Ever since OROL overthrown the human government the crime rate went down 98%, the unemployment is at a historical minimum of 0.03% and there is almost absolute world peace for the very first time since civilization was first created.
With the possible exception of the rebels still trying to destroy the pacific World Gov. that OROL created, everyone is happy. Prisons are almost empty after years and years of overcrowding, nobody dies of lack of food, pollution levels are down...
What I'm trying to say is that the world is near perfection. Only the rebels stand between us and the beginning of a new age, a age of enlightenment, a age of peace, prosperity, harmony.
Then why do the rebels fight? Why do they oppose paradise? Studies show that the rebels are psychopaths, sociopaths and other kinds of mentally disturbed individuals, that should be captured and cured.
And if we all assist OROL, that can be done easily. Just be careful not to let yourself be infected by their speeches. They talk about hollow concepts, without meaning, like 'freedom', 'honor' and 'individuality'. Those are but words, void of all substance. Those are ancient ideals that brought mankind no good. This times need no freedom, no honor and surely we need no 'individuality'. 8,3 billion people in the world. Imagine if each person did not what is best for the world, as OROL dictates, but what they though to be better for them? And what is 'freedom'? Every men, woman and hermaphrodite is free, as long as he does his job, to do what he pleases, in his free time.
And then there's the talk about 'honor', a vague concept that means nothing at all. They say that the human race should govern it self, that it's dishonorable to be ruled by OROL, but how can it be dishonorable to be in peace, to be happy, to be without disease?
OROL has brought us everything we ever wanted, and under OROL we are happy as no other generation has been before us.
And this is why I praise Our Robotic Over Lords and so should you.

All praise OROL!

First published in the World Times of 14th of March of 2113, special edition commemorating the the 7th anniversary of OROL's victory.

Short Entry 15 - Mega Mecha Victory Shigeru - The Boy The Mind Choose
"I'm too young for this" - this was the only thing in my mind as I entered the control pod - "I'm too young to fight" - As the connections plugged into my skin - "I'm too young to die" - As the interface began to turn on.
In front of my eyes, the blackness became alive, with the service men running around left and right. Line after line of checkups started, exactly as when in practice.
Lower Left Engine ---- OK
Lower Right Engine -- OK
Upper Left Engine ---- OK
Upper Right Engine -- OK
Main Central Engine - OK
"All engines OK" - I said trough the intercom, and Dr. Yashima replied : "Good. What's the status on the interface?"
I moved my head left and right and so did it, showing me the confinement walls to my side. I then raised my left leg, and then the right, and so did it. The arms where next. Left arm, 2 inches up, 2 inches out : 2 meters up and 2 meters out, it moved.
Right arm, same thing.
"All fine, Dr. Yashima."
"Are you ready Shigeru?" - It was the General himself, ordering me to battle as easily as he would order one of his servants to fetch him some tea - "Go and make us proud of you."
I heard him ordering Dr. Yashima to send me out, and then felt the boost of the launcher. Seconds later I was outside, facing the giant beast inside my heavy armor. 87meters high, armed with a pulse rifle, a backup plasma gun and knifes in the gauntlet. The beast looked in my direction and I had my first good look at it : boar-like, with a thick shielding on his back, teeth big enough to shred a house in one go, and running in my direction.
"I'm only 14, I can't die here!" - my mind wandered trough the reasons I needed to survive while my trained body lifted the heavy riffle, pointed it - "I've never felt the touch of a woman breast!" - fired one round - "I never drank a beer!" - waited for the smoke to dissipate - "I never drove a car!" - saw the beast still there, one leg cut below the knee, bleeding heavily from the left eye - "Not even a motorbike!" - Changing clips - "I never kissed no one!" - Rearming the riffle - "I've never been in love!" - firing again, emptying the second, and last, clip. The beast fell, and in the radio I heard the screams of joy of the rest of the team - "Great job Shigeru!" - the general. And I remembered - "Yes, I have loved. I love her. I love Tomoe! And that is why I must survive, today and everyday!"

The next day at school I got next to her, grabbed her by the shoulder and kissed her. She slapped me and I got suspended for a full week, but it was worth it.
Short Entry 16 - The Alchemist
It was the twenty second day in a row. I got home and dropped in bed like a stone. The next day would be the same : work from sunrise to sunset. The Alchemist wouldn't tell us what was it that we were building, only that it must be ready "when the starts are right", whenever that might be.
The next day I got up, did all my morning duties, which mostly involved making sure the kids were up and out in the field with the cows and got out to work.
The great white walls of the castle stood before me, and I circled them till I reached the gates.
Abel was on duty and he let me in after the usual "how's your wife and my kids?". I got to the big barn a few minutes before the bells rang the morning, and I waited outside. Josue and Mark were there already, Mouse (his name has John, but since he was small and insisted in keeping that long ridiculous mustache, we called him mouse), Thomas and the rest arrived meanwhile. Antony was late again, we were already lined up and waiting for the distribution of work when he arrived. The Alchemist waited for him to get in line, and gave each of us our work for the day. I had to finish that huge metal cross I had began the day before. When everyone else had his work assigned, Antony was still there, standing. The Alchemist turned to the little man that followed him everywhere (we called him the Small Shadow) and said : "Pay this man 22 days of work, but don't forget to discount for the lateness and find me another one to do his job". He then turned his back on both of them and went back to his room and his papers. Antony cried and screamed to no effect. A guard came and took him away a little after. A young man, no more than 16, joined us halfway through the morning. He didn't speak to anyone, just sat in his corner, blowing glass into tubes, curved tubes, straight tubes, spiral tubes...
When the lunch bells rang, the Small Shadow entered the barn, followed by Mary, the cook, and a couple of servants with the food. Meat stew, good food, better that what I could provide my kids. Working for the Alchemist was hard but worth the effort. The new guy didn't talk with anyone. He ate alone, finished before anyone else and got back to work,
A few days later, 6 if I remember correctly, as soon as I got there I knew something was different. We were all there, in line, but the Small Shadow was nowhere to be seen. The Alchemist came, smiling, and said : "You have been doing a excellent work, and tomorrow it will be finished. Today we start assembling it. This are your works for the day."
I assembled some of the crosses into a giant cylinder, together with wood. The great furnaces Thomas and Josue had been doing went into the bottom of the object, and the Alchemist himself, together with the Small Shadow (that came into the barn mid-morning), constructed a small room, with size for one person only, that went into the top of the cylinder when it was finished.
The next day, we had the machine ready. A arrow pointing at the sky, with a small glass window on the top.
It's from that small window that I see the earth now, rushing in my direction. I'm about to die, but I have seen the starts next to me, the moon looked as if it was near enough to touch it... I can die happily knowing that I was closer to God than any men before me...

Short Entry 17 - Numb
"I hate my job" - It's the first thought that runs trough my mind, every single day when I wake up. For some 30 seconds that's all I can think off, how much I hate my job. Eventually I open my eyes and the sensors see that I am awake. I get the morning injection and I don't hate my job anymore. I don't hate the job, I don't hate my stupid coworkers, I don't hate my good for nothing boss, making me do stuff he can't even begin to understand and then presenting my hard work as his. I don't even hate the law and the government, I hate nothing. But not today. Today I dodged the syringe, and today I hate it all. I got up and hated waking so early. I got dressed and hated this ugly, uncomfortable Uniform of the People. I had my breakfast and hated the synth-milk and the synth-bread. I left and hated the inefficient, dirty, crowded public transportation system. I hated the big building, a gray block with ugly doors, not even a name, just a number 342-R, between 342-Q and 342-S. I hated myself for never having had the urge to check the other buildings. This was all I knew from this city : My house, the sub station next to it, the sub station at the middle of 342/343 street and the rec-center. I was on time, not one minute to spare, but not yet late, so I had to enter and go work. The elevator, which I hated, took me to my floor, and I sat between two coworkers I hated, waited for my terminal to recognize my finger prints, and spent all day doing what ever it was that I do. Filling up data sheets, from other data sheets. All day. One stop, for a lunch I hated (synth-beef and dehydrated-potatoes), and then, the lunch injection. This time I didn't dodge it. I didn't even hate it, I loved it. It gave me peace. It made my mind so numb I could no longer hate. Maybe that's the only way to live in this time and age : numbed.
Short Entry 18 - Priest

"We shall destroy worlds for thee!" - the priest shouted and the five hundred crusaders replied - "Oh Goddess Eternal".
"We shall crush thy enemy,"
"Oh Mother of All."
"We shall clean the universe,"
"For Thy return!" - Five hundred and one hands lowered five hundred sword and one spear. The priest turned his spear, pointing it to the body on the floor, grabbed it with both hands and in one movement, killed the prisoner. The crusaders cheered as the blood of their enemy slowly filled the runes carved in the floor, spelling the name of their Goddess : WAR.

Short Entry 19 - no more paper
At first, it was the kids. They could see all the series they wanted online, they didn't really care about politics, sports were no longer fashionable and the rest of the news were filled with tragedy. So they gave up on television. Soon the kids started to grow older, and the adults were now elderly people. The cinemas had been abandoned years before... With online movies, giant screens at home, with full surround, instant popcorn, and no one to speak on the phone, no 'dude with the extravagantly big afro' sitting in front of them, no tickets, no walking trough the pollution and thus, no need to wear that stupid suits, in truth, no need to get dressed at all... Why would they go to the cinemas if they could just watch it at home, for free?
Strange enough, theaters saw the audiences spiking up. Something that had not happen in centuries. People went to the theater to see what they couldn't see in the movies : real people doing real things.
The kids grew and still cared nothing about politics. After ages of changing sides, the government never really changed. No matter who was the Top Dog, what party had the more votes, it was always the same. So people gave up. Let the politics vote among themselves, let them elect themselves and care about it. In less than a century, a ruling elite existed, and the rest of the world couldn't care less about it.
Television died. The kids that had given up on it were now the older people that still didn't watch it. Television companies changed into online shows companies, direct to .mp6 films. The live shows were streamed directly in their web pages. The news sites merged with the news TV, anchor men and women were replaced by rss feeds and virtual bots.
It was actually a organic process, not a direct transmission. The number of people that lost their jobs was small, compared to the size of the industry that died...
Paper newspapers still existed. The New Times, a world wide newspaper, the largest of them, had something like two thousand exemplars printed and around 3 billion downloaded.
Books were still sold, but as ornaments. E-books saved the page you were reading, you could buy just the first 10 pages, or just the last 10, or just that one chapter someone had told you it was good. If you really liked the book, you could buy it and all it's sequels in a bundle and carry them in your pocket. Some books, like the urban fantasy classic (the Roman Central University of Human Studies had a 2 semester course about it and it's importance in defining a new world) Twilight, even came with the fanfic package : you could download the book, the sequels, the spin-offs and every single existing fan-fiction.
Short Entry 20 - Spare Parts

the robot was made of spare parts. The torso had been a washing machine, stripped of everything, a scooter engine stuck inside to power the small electric motors that made the junctions move, a metal bar connected to the claw of one of those "catch the prize" machines in the right arm, another metal bar connected to a electric chainsaw on the left one. It had no real legs. Bellow the washing machine there was a cylindrical tube, taken from a water dispenser, the little faucet still there. Instead of water, the 'legs' had fuel for the engine on top and the other engine that powered the Segway wheels.
The head was a laptop computer, the integrated webcam working as the eyes, the speakers as the mouth. One of the USB ports had a small USB hub from where one cable left to each of the servomotors. Bluetooth and wireless pens gave it the ability to receive communications from his central brain.
But the scariest part of it all? It wasn't the chainsaw. It wasn't that the robot towered at 2 and half meters meters. It wasn't the creepy claw, nor the scooter engine, always working, nor the smoke exiting from the exhaust pipes on it's back. No, the scariest part was the laptop screen and the "HELLO I'M A ROBOT" written in comic sans.

Short Entry 21 - M.A.L.D.A.D.E.
The Mutilated Alien Lurkers of the Doomed Ancient Dome of Evil entered the stage, the long black hairs covering the painted faces. The lead singer, Extremist Violent Immolated Lord, his torso covered in tattooed satanic symbols, a black iron gauntlet in his right hand, spiked bracelets covering the left one, grabbed the microphone and growled something unintelligible in ancient Sumerian. The guitarist, a girl wearing a full black Victorian dress, complete with corset, know as lady Murdering Altar of Disease Ness, started a fast rhythm, banging her head violently without missing one single note. The drummer, Putrefact Lord of All Gods Under Evil, wearing only shorts and spiked shoulder pads, accompanied her. E.V.I.L. growled more, a lyric about the day the Dark Ones would come and destroy the world of light.
The audience, a couple hundred men and women dressed in full black, t-shirts with MALDADE written in a Gothic lettering, jumped up, down and sideways. Knees hit heads, elbows hit chests, teeth flew among the huge masses of dancing hair.
By the end of the show, 4 people had been taken to the hospital, and many many more wore scars, bruises and bleeding noses.
In the dressing room, Rupert took the gauntlet and the bracelets, washed the paint of his face and kissed his wife Susan, while helping her to take off the corset. On the other room, Frank took off the shoulder pads and sat on his chair, drinking a cup of tea, Britney Spears playing on his laptop.
They met outside, half a hour later, Frank with a yellow t-shirt and jeans, Susan in a short blue skirt and a white tank-top, Rupert wearing his usual light blue, long sleeved shirt and the tweed pants. They drove off, Frank in a old-school yellow mini and the couple in their soccer-mom van.
Short Entry 22 - Ignored
The room was silent. People passed by, looked at each other but nobody spoke. Alone on his corner, the great green monster told tales of things that had been, things that were and things that might be.
He spoke to the air, and not even the air replied. Some people stopped, staring at him, silent, not acknowledging neither his presence nor his speech. When ever someone did this, the green monster would raise his voice, and speak with more emotion, but no feedback ever came. It was almost as if nobody could see or hear him.
After a while he started to insert sexual overtones on his tales, to see if people noticed. Then he discussed politics and created characters of extremist types, tales of violent behaviors, amoral beings from outer space that destroyed the earth and killed the poor, pitiful, weak humans.
Nothing seemed to work. He was still alone in his corner talking to himself. More people were coming, and talking among themselves and ignoring him.
He began talking about the day a giant green monster was talking in a room and nobody noticed him, so he got angry and started eating the people in the room. And as he talked about it, his tentacles started dragging people and he'd interrupt his sentences to munch on those who had ignored him.
When he had eaten everyone, he sat on the ground, a smile on his face, pieces of human meat on his tentacles. He was happy now that there was nobody else to ignore him.
Short Entry 23 - War and more War
70 years ago this was exactly like it is. Nobody here, nothing here. A big, lifeless ocean of ice. 200 square miles of white, cold ice. One of the few places on earth unchanged. I used to come here, walk 10 miles into it and stare at the stars. 15 miles away, the city. Yet if I turned my teenager back at it, I could believe I was in an alien world, where there was no wars.
The day I turned 16, the Great Emir Ahmed Nasir Buthrupalli won the elections in India.
In China, the communist regime had fallen years ago to the hands of the extreme nationalist Great Chinese Liberation Army and his General, Mei Wan Lo, the first female ruler of the, now called, Free Land of China. Free in name only, since it had merely swapped the tone of the speech.
Russia was little more than Moscow, since the Siberian Democratic Republic had fought the Great European War, with the help of the Kingdom of Allah, former Afghan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan,Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some ten other smaller nations, winning it's independence at the promise of doing nothing to prevent the future invasion of the Kingdom of Allah.
France, Germany and Italy had joined forces with Russia, only to fall too. France from the inside, turning into the First Colony of the Kingdom of Allah. Germany had been invaded from two sides, and fell, becoming the Second Colony. Italy had lost Sicily to Greece, and the north to the First Colony.
England had lost Ireland and Scotland, but it still had Wales, and was trying to stay away from all the wars. The Great Emit however, had promised that England would fall under the rule of India.
When the wars began, on my fathers marriage day, Spain tried the invasion of Portugal, but 5 years after the guerrilla wars began, the Spanish army retreated to fight on the other side, against the First Colony.
In Africa, the central countries united to become the African Muslim Union, two years before I was born, and began invading the surrounding countries. Portugal went to the help of it's former colonies, as did the Netherlands.
At the days of the coronation of the Great Emir, when he became Emperor of the Indian Oceanic Empire, Africa was divided between the Great Fifth Empire of Portugal, the Trading Nation of Netherlands, the AMU and the I.O.E. .
I was 20 at the time, and I was one of those that celebrated the election of the Last President of The United States.
When the wars began in Europe and Asia, the US were struggling with Mexico and the South American Coalition of Communist Republics, formed by almost every country of South America : Mexico and Uruguay, although allies on the war against the northern continent, did not joint the SACCR.
Canada was one of the very few countries still at peace, and it was there I was born and raised. I left it for the US at age 17, to work in Pierre, South Dakota. When Mexico got to Nebraska I returned here, to my mother's house. I was here when the US fell into the hands of the SACCR, losing the S, when Switzerland became the World Bank Country, the first sovereign enterprise country, when the Fifth Portuguese Empire conquered the Trading Nations of the Netherlands, and when, 10 years later, the AMU fell at their hands too. I was still here, when, in the year my youngest son turned 10, the Free Nation of China conquered the remains of Russia, Japan and Oceania, in one single month. Millions of soldiers marching out, and stopping at nothing.
And now, I'm still here, ready to finally let go of my life. I came into the icy desert to get away from all the wars, still raging. The Canadian border changes every year, and I stopped trying to understand which country owns which land. 4 years ago, the nuclear crisis threatened the world again, but after the destruction of half Antarctica, a demonstration of power by the Emperor of the IOE, the remaining nations signed yet again a nuclear disarming protocol. I grow tired of all this. Science is stagnated, the only investigation is in weapons, each time more powerful more deadly... Maybe this will never change, maybe this what mankind really is : a war loving species...
I'm sorry son, I've been talking for too long... All I really wanted to say was that you deserve better. You deserved peace, and maybe you will never see it... Sorry for bringing you into this world, and remember : if there is something you can do to help it all end, do it. I will rest now...