Thread for Multiverser-related fictional short stories...  :)

In reply to Tadeusz (msg # 1):

Practise Bits: Prosthetics

The sun rose, and Kenneth Haston poured himself out of his bucket.  He lay on the alley under the porch, and mentally activated the muscle cells in his skin.  Skin tightened, and then he did the same with the extra-length tendons and ligaments.  Joints popped back together with a staccato crackling.

He broke off the mucus tubes that ran from his nose so that he could breathe when he was hiding overnight in the bucket.  If one didn't hide, then getting enslaved by one of the factions that ran things was a lively possibility.  And Kenneth wanted to make his own way, not have to work ten years to get some small psi-mod or magical alteration which he could buy with a few months of labor, but in a faction he would be having all his excess sopped up by the faction's elites who were aiming to turn themselves into magic mechbods.  Sucking in fresh, untainted air was a blessing, but no one looked in an old plastic bucket under a porch.

Warming up, his metabolism rising from near hibernation, his implanted muscle cells having tightened his looseness up, he rose to his feet, and slipped out of the alley.  Opening the upper flaps on his ears with a simple hand gesture to unfold, he listened with a hearing greatly heightened by the extra ear size for any watchers breathing as he passed from alley to alley, and then out to the warehouse on the edge of town where he dumped the bucket, and most of his daytime clothing after he filled the bucket with water from an unused except by him faucet on a metal pipe.

His face looked pink, normal, and so did his hands, but other than that, he was green. Drinking the bucket of water, the full two gallons necessitated him popping out his lower stomach.  He passed through the warehouse, and looked about, and then out into the wilderness.

Up a hill, into the undergrowth, and he found his regular trail.  He also found signs that it had been used by men, so he sighed, and took the alternate path which took an extra two hours.

Finally, he arrived at the sun rock, which was his private hideaway in the leaf clotted woods.  Laying out on it, he peeled off most of the rest of his clothes, and stretched out.  The sun beat down on him, and water mixed with photosyntheses causing cells in his green skin to provide him energy.

Four hours later, and he swallowed a handful of multivitamins with a magical enhancer.  That was all he needed to stay alive.  Water, sun, and vitamins, but it was a low energy existence.  Walking back and forth each morning and night took up a third of his energy budget.  'Bucketizing' and 'Unbucketizing' took up another third.

Slowly, trying to save energy, Haston walked further into the forest, and came to a tree.  This he sliced the bark and underbark of to block the channels of nutrients going up the tree.

Checking another one, and another, he found that those trees were dying.  Checking the last one, he saw that the tree was well and truly dead.  But it needed time to rot, so that he could push it over with ease.  If he could kill enough trees fast enough, and knock them over, without regrowth getting in his way, he could have space for a garden.

Already, he had some space for a shaded vegetable patch, suited for cabbage.  Checking it, he found one head ripe enough to eat.

The thrill of having extra calories, actual food, ran like a lightning jolt through him, bringing a smile.  And it was food that none of the factions knew he had, that could not be taxed or stolen or declared unsafe which were the methods the factions used to keep the underpeople down.

But Kenneth intended to be a faction leader of his own now.  And none of them had better get in his way.

Parker grinned wildly as he sprinted fleetfooted up the clover draped rampart.  His previous hidey-hole among the blackberry bushes seventy yards back exploded showering dirt uphill, and over the parked cars at the back of the Dollar Bazaar, and turning some good berries into very tart jam.

Cresting the hill, he spun up a shield drone so that it darted in front of him.  Below him, the Swan River, a hundred yards wide and forty yards deep, and on the other side another rampart to hold flood waters in, and then two miles beyond that, the downtown towers of Cressida, home to three million people, besieged by eight hundred.  A sixty calibre rocket boosted bullet spranged off his shield drone, fired from one of the nearer towers by a Cressidan sniper.  Even at three times the speed of sound, a bullet going two miles took an appreciable moment to arrive.

His UpTOP, a radar, lidar, and passive video drone had fastcalced the mortar round to be over to his left.  And he saw it, faster than the UpTOP could funnel the video to his virtual overlay sunglasses.  Both hands snapped to the left, and one 'cocked and fired' as if this was but a game, and a signal flashed from the UpTOP to a dug in micro-rocket launcher drone off to his right.

Air flooded into the vaccum of the launcher tube, and shoved the micro-rocket out at fifty miles per hour.  A half-second later, the rocket engine had united liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in an inferno that took a second and a half to reach its target.  The missile slammed into the mortar tube carried by two men, two soldiers who were fleeing, following procedure of 'fire, then move, fire, ..."

But with his eyes all over the battlefield, and his immortality from being a verser, this was all a very fun video game.  And it was this devil may care attitude that contributed to him being the best killer in the whole state of South Cali.  Much of combat is hesitating.  He did not.  He knew what was behind that door, or that door before he kicked it in.  His drone rats had already snuck in.  Or he had a flying drone that took pictures from the sky.  And around him, he had thirty drones, some walking, some crawling, and some flying.  Some were armed with machine gun, or missile.  Others, not so much such as his valetbot which carried a thousand rounds of ammo, plus food.
8

Not a Multiverser idea, although I've used it for such...

Isabella De Longfree rose from her divan, her silk robes trailing behind her, and walked through the shadowed marble halls of the imperial embassy, enjoying the cool stone underfoot.  Outside, a blue-white sun and a radio tower cut blue-edged shadow lines on the five story north face of the ancient fort turned embassy.  Putting a gentle smile on, she ducked her head into Lance's bedroom to see him rising to his feet, and donning his boots.  Naptime was done.


The twelve year old lad began rattling off, at triple-time, the Periodic Elements Table according to an antique poem, even as he slipped into bullhide boots which were neccessary because the dessert snakes, the coura and the sdoli, often came into the city for warmth and got lost in the streets until someone killed them.

A quick gasp of breath, and then he ran down the line of Kings for his land, the Kingdom of Houses, and just to show off added all the Dukes of the House Longfree.  A position that he might one day have, if mischance or bad favor attached to the two ahead of him from other lines of the family came to pass.  With that, he turned a startling white grin in his dark face toward his mother.

"Go. Have fun."  She said, her heart melting. The boy had been looking forward to visiting with his friends from the other Houses, which had merchant factors in town. He bounced in the air, and then she raised a hand.

"Your knives, son?"

He showed her his back knife, hung between his shoulder blades, a huge thing, suited for cutting down cacti, and killing wolves.  Then he pulled up the loose tunic arm of his inner robe, and displayed the fighting knife the locals of San Simarte used in dire need.  It was held in a snap-out holster.

"Father said I should take to wearing it all the time, given the current troubles."
He spoke solemnly.  Isabella nodded, her smile a bit grim.  It was her, and her husband's job to try to defuse the rising vortex of trouble spawned by the Aramark Group or as they now called themselves since Isabella's late childhood, the Unione.  The League of Ten Cities was even younger, as it had formed but four years ago from the previous Council of Trades.

Waving goodbye to him as he pelted down the corridor away from her, she turned to see Adrienne, her second child,  and eldest daughter of eight standing right beside her.  Isabella controlled her start, but from the small glimmer of smile on the ebony face, not very well.  When she wanted to be, little Adrienne could be a pool of quiet, drawing sound, it seemed into her, making her according to her older brother, a pestiferous nuisance if she was pulling a prank on him, or a golden opportunity if they were snagging goodies from the kitchen staff.

"Kimmie did not want to get up yet, Mother." Adrienne informed her seriously.
"Its art today." Isabella replied, leading the way to the art room, a former greenhouse on the flat roof with excellent views of the boxy buildings of the city, and the far mountains, and the narrow gulf of Isterz, named for Dominic De Valencia Jesus Isterz, former janitor at NASA in Huntsville, and later explorer of the Southerly Coast.
"Good." Adrienne relaxed her posture, and swung her arms, keeping up with her mother.  "I left a note for her."
Kimberly was five, and sometimes when she went down for the mid-day nap that was a custom of the city, she went down hard.  But it would not do to have her wandering the vast embassy, with its total of one hundred seventy four rooms, not counting walk-in closets or pantries or bathrooms or secret hidey-holes, crying for her mother and older sister.
Entering the art room, Isabella saw Duncan waiting for her, with a sheaf of papers, and a determined look on his face.  She shook her head.  He pleaded with a look.
"Is it Red? Yellow, even?" She asked sternly.  Duncan was an immigrant from the Hos Dbios tribe, good friends to the Kingdom of Houses, but possessed of a barbarian lack of uniformity and system with an intensity that could fry a duck at ten paces.  Like the Kingdom, the Dbios were godly folk, but the Kingdom's preachers did not begin every sermon with a prayer for God to send Michael Archangel down to smite the Unione hip and thigh.  Of course, the Unione, or in its then incarnation as the Association of Peoples had given the Dbios plenty of reason for hate.
Duncan winced, and then his innate honesty took over, and sighing greatly, and repeatedly to loudly show his displeasure, he stomped from the room.
Isabella turned to see a relieved Adrienne holding back the giggles.  She smiled gently, but corrected her daughter.
"Respect dear.  If you've ever seen a pistol and spear assault by a platoon of Dbois, the speed and fury of the attack, you will not laugh at them again."
"Yes mother." The daughter bowed her head, and turned to the art supplied to quickly change the subject.
The two of them began a study of fruit, and a half hour later, Kimberly joined them.  And when they were done, they ate the fruit.

This seems... familiar...  :)

Oak, yes indeed.
==============

It was my third universe, four if you count the Earth of the twenty-first century I was born in.  As a worldwalker, death is a doorway to other material worlds in the Multiverse, instead of a passage to Final Judgement.  So after trying to stop a triceratops from marauding through the Human village of thatched huts behind me, and instead getting impaled on two of its horns, I woke in a new here and now.

The taste of defeat was bitter on my tongue, and I thought back to old friends such as my Hunter Bond, Talqiza, and the delightful eyes of the maidens, Shora, Tasmi, and Dakri, and the little fishing buddies, Malitak and Jorado.  I had ran down mammoths with Talqiza, and enjoyed many a fine dinner with the girls, and spent lazy days by the river catching trout and bass with the little fellows whenever they could get away from feeding the goats, or watching the sheep.  According to Michael Di Vars, who was three thousand years old to his account, I would never see them again, nor anyone else in the unnamed village by the river.

Pushing the heel of my hand into my eyes to banish tears, I began to look about to see what manner of world I had come too.  The roadway was narrow, twelve feet, but when I reached down to touch it, lights sprang into action on each edge for a dozen feet in either direction.  They were dim, almost LEDs, and set into little hollows in what seemed to be a solid sheet of stone.

Walking forward between blocky shapes that might be houses, or shops, or something unimaginable, the lights spread before me, and fell away behind me until I came to sunken drain in the midst of the street.  The inverted cone, a gentle thing, of the street made it clear why there were no gutters.

Looking at the grate, I deduced they had no tree leaves of the size of oak or maple.  Such would quickly block the waterflow.  Looking on, I saw another grate, or the shape thereof another fifty feet further on.  And it was only because the road sloped down that I could see the grate despite the inversion.

Looking up, I saw a clear sky, and no moon.  And while I saw the Big Dipper, it was upside down, and distorted strangely.  Most likely that meant I was not on Earth.  Although it could be that this was Earth, and having no moon was normal for this Earth.

I had been to a world where vampires degraded into zombies and Al Gore was the Hierarch of the Temple of Gaia and seen the man call upon the power of his goddess to burn a vampire to dust, and one where Abraham Lincoln was the Viceroy of the American Colonies for Good Queen Vickie, and one where the humans lived in an Iron Age dance with dinosaurs (although they called them dragons).  From listening to Di Vars' tales, far stranger things were possible.

Too radical a skepticism would get me no where, but I needed to keep an eye out for anomalies, and seek their explanation I decided as I came to a T-intersection.  And then to my left I saw a glow.  Turning full on to face it, I stared in  utter dismay.

A flaming, spinning ball of some substance arced through the sky toward me.  I ran, then looked.  It was still coming down in a long, low curve above the rooftops.  Running again, panic gripping me, and then I found myself grabbed, manhandled, and spun about.

"Control yourself, man."  A tough faced man, who spoke English, with a weird accent of sibilant s' and fluttery t's and other oddities held me by the shirt.  And so I was ashamed.

"Look up." He paused. "Judge the catapuli."

And now I saw that it would land, somewhere to my the left, on the path I had come, and calm came to my soul.  And it hit, and bits of sticky flaming goo spattered everywhere near.  One of the 'boxes' was sheated in flame.

"Bastardii Podules." The man snapped, and then turned to me, "Get the sandbuckets."  And he sprinted forward.

============
In the Monomyth, he's at the Call to Adventure, and he's met his mentor.  He will have to dare the threat of injury, for death does not scare him, but pain and longterm injury do.

And he will go out of the world, across the wall to the Land of the Podules and the other aliens who live under their rule to Test, Find Allies, etc.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:01, Wed 26 Mar 2014.

How many universes?  :)

In the alternate universe he is from, third means the same as fourth.  To do '3' you use a whole 'nother word.  Natch.

Jeremy Archaki dredged up muscle strength to battle languour and the weakening of eyeball lids as the t.a. spoke ernestly about something dreadfully important to the near comatose.  It was August of 05, and the distant shrieks of bikini-clad coeds in the college's natatorium were far more compelling than the whining seriousness of the thin, little man in front of the podium.

"...as I've tried to make clear to you.  It is your generation that has the responsibility to rise up, and put down the Oppressive Heteronormativity of unlimited population expansion. It is killing Mother..."

And here Jeremy lost the battle, having heard this sermon many times before.  His head drooped from his side twisted forearms to his right bicep, and he was asleep at his desk in the afternoon class of Junior level, Population Dynamics.

Caitlyn Carter, blonde, beautiful, bikini-clad in a red print was advancing toward him, climbing out of the pool, shouting 'Mr. Archaki, for the last time, wake up!  This is important." Then inexplicably, she grabbed a mug of water off a nearby ironwork grate,  but painted white, table. This she dashed on him with an expression full of fury on her face.

Jeremy woke, surrounded by white flame, with the horrified face of the t.a. in front of him.  Starting to say something, but then he realized he couldn't.  He was falling to bits.

Cold. Wet. Jeremy jerked up.  He realized he was on his side, and looked down by the light of the bright neon.  Black, slick granite under his left side spooked him so that he leapt to his feet, and then slipped back to bang on his bottom, and rap his left wrist on the warm stone.  A drop of water spattered his head, and he looked up to see a steady drip from the roof of the near cave indentation he found himself in.  Around him, a steady murmur of breathing, and a few complaints telling him to lie down and quiet the noise came to his ear.

More cautiously, he arose.  Looking about, gingerly, ready for another slip and fall, he counted twenty-two men asleep.  All seemed rough dressed, and many were bearded.  Almost a third were redheads.

Beyond the black granite indentation, and hall of the homeless, he saw a ditch, full of weeds, marked by several paths.  Then a chainlink fence, badly cared for, and rising above that three and four story buildings, blocky, and lit by large hanging neon signs in kanji script.

Where am I?  Hong Kong?  Tokyo's famed Water District?  NYC's Chinatown?  He had been in north Georgia, in Plateau Point, at the High View College of Arts and Sciences.  But the biggest neon sign in Point was a third the size of those he spotted here, and 'Barb's BarNGrill' was in English.  The other Point neon was limited to the ubiquitous 'Open' signs.

From the left, out of his view, a robot, shaped like an extended egg, floated into view. It stopped, stared at him, and then came to him at a right angle.  It did not turn its face, having one on all sides.  Floating over the homeless did not disturb the sleepers with its almost silent hum.

"This is rest time, human."
"Uh, where am I? I'm not supposed to be here."
"You are on the Thirteenth Avenue of Outer Hong Kong, which has been reclaimed from the sea."
"That's....that's impossible.  I was in...Hey, you're a robot. A flying robot."
"Yes?" The robot queried

"Lord Jeff!" A teenager, no, a third year journeyman for this world did not have 'teenagers' ran up the street shouting.  "Lord Jeff!".  Jeff Angles McCormick laughed to himself, at hearing his title.  Even after eight years living among the Cadersee Duchies, the incongruity of it tickled his funnybone.

He rose from the sunny table outside Tubano's Eatery, slipping past the husbands with their mistresses, and the wives with their gigolos, all very civilly ignoring the Indiscretionia which was the primary form of entertainment in the micro-states called Duchies out of a long-gone power, from a day and age when these small cities had ruled the vast continent they edged upon.

He met the young man in the street, for such wild energy would have earned him frowns from the adulterers as uncouth.  The bright-eyed young fellow, not too handsome so he had little chance to dance with a lady two decades his elder, nor chance to date a maiden his own age as all of them were hobnobbing with the wealthier men of town, established sorts, came bolting up to him.

"Mage. The Croscundren Barrier is breached."

Jeff flung his napkin down, and was gone before the echoes of the word hit the walls of the tiie roofed houses all about.  A Word, and he gained the speed of Brother Eagle.  Fingering the fine gold thread in his heavy overtunic, he sighed, and rubbed it thrice, sacrificing the gold and the intricate picture of Asioxynly of the Seven Wiknds so that he would never gasp for oxygen for the next hour.

And with those preparations made, he ran fleeter than a sprinting horse down the streets, and down to the harbor.  A cart of smokeweed and empty barrels pulled into his path, and chancing greatly, he picked up the pace, and then leapt.

Windmilling his arms to try to stay upright, he told himself if the ski jumpers in the Olympics could do it, so could he as he soared over the cart, and headed downhill from it.  But the ground rushing up at him was not snow, nor was it perfectly smooth.
Instead, it was pitted, from poor repair, with the road crews enjoying their two hour long lunch by the road, gawking at him as he flew by.

Realizing that he would not make two steps, that he would surely snap his ankle, Jeff concentrated instead on just finding one safe landing point.  And when he hit it, he leapt again.  And coming down fifty feet further on, he leapt again.  And coming to the T-intersection, and the two story Palace of the Ladies, decorated with statues of beauty in undress in profusion, he leapt even so the more so that he came down on the red roof tiles, scattering them, tumbling up to the roof top, and flying over.

Cartwheeling in the air, he found a foot under him, and kicked off again.  And with five more steps, he made it down to the harbor.  From thence he ran out on to the water, like a skipping stone, but each step slowed him further until with a horrible jolt he stopped two hundred yards out, and ten feet deep, with his mouth full of brine.

Floating because of the Ring, the Gift of Poseidon's Sons upon his left pinkie finger, which overwhelmed his undercoat of silk, and his linen undercoat, and his green serge, and his embroidered overcoat and the knee-high leather boots that a well-dressed minor noble would wear, he came to the surface.  A quick whistle, and the aid of one of the harbour dolphins was bought with a promise of free tuna.  It took him to shore, and he bought with a silver denarii a half-dozen tuna which he tossed to his new friend, and the others in his pod.

Squelching wet, and having no prepared spell to mitigate that, the Lord Jeff walked up the hill in reverse a hundred yards to see the Arch of the Forgotten.  It commemorated the ancient magi who had barred the Underdisarii from leaving their waters for the land.  Unbeknown to most, it also kept the spell active.

And it had a crack in it.  The Arch-Mage Croscundren would not be pleased, if he were alive, which Jeff was pretty sure he was not, since it was three hundred years later.  But that left Jeff an interesting problem.  For he had no idea how to 'uncrack' the Arch.

The Bay Guard Captain came up to him, who must have been the one to send the young man, but knowing him well, the Captain kept quiet as Jeff slipped on a pair of Rayban eyeglasses, which he had enchanted with magesight.

The problem was easy to discover.  The Arch drew its power from the Town, with immatgerial tubes running under ground, drawing up power like the roots of a tree draw up water.

Jeff whistled.

The tubes could each carry an enormous amount of power.  Why one of them for a mere hour could feed him all the mana he used in a year.

Looking closer, he realized that the tubes were almost empty.  A mere trickle of energy was going down the tubes to the Arch.  And the Arch was a living thing, a thing made of stone and bone and jewel and coral, but living all the same.  And it was dying of starvation.

Jeff realized he had a problem.  Out there, somewhere over the continental shelf, a vicious breed was looking to expand.  And even now, its wise men might be realizing that the fence that had bound them in was no more.

But the Arch, Jeff shook his head.  He had heard tell that the ancient mages were mighty beyond the understanding of the moderns, but he had put that down to typical gloom-mongering.  Now, seeing Croscundren's Great Work, he realized that the stories had been understated.

There simply was not enough magical energy in the whole town to power this thing.  What to do, what to do? Jeff began chewing his fingernails as he stared at the magic flows under the sand.

At ninety-five years of age, I was the youngest person on Earth.  To be more precise, this Earth, this timeline for as an immortal, I had already visited eight other dimensions, five of them Earths of some kind or the other, if you were generous with your definition.  Earth turned into an intergalactic spaceship fleeing the impact zone of an antimatter galaxy plunging through the Milky Way was still Earth, right?

"Get cracking, you lazy snot." The sharp, bitter voice of Max, my boss, cut me from my reverie.  I leaned forward into the explosed guts of the Osteo-Cardiac Monitor/Stabilizer, Mod Four-B. and began pulling the axiom core block from the processor overblock.  It was delicate work, and in my hurry I banged the casing on the curvilinear cerametal case of the bot.

"You worthless, no good..." Max raised his hand to strike me, full of one hundred twenty plus years of dissapointed fury.  But his bot behind him, a Cardio-Pulmonary-GI, or CPG bot tapped his arm, reminding him.  And so with ill grace, he subsided, not wanting to blow his heart again on a rant at me.

"Crazy refusenik." He muttered, and then attempted to stalk off, except a knee popped so he had the shop-house use the ceiling crane to tote him to the next room where he would dream of better days when he had believed that super-intelligence and lifespans longer than the galaxy were possible.  Instead, computers hit the top of the S-curve, and Moore's Law lay shattered on the silicon sands.

My valet bot took the axiom core, and gave me another.  It carried things for me, and occassionally when I acted too healthy, I leaned on it.  Because while I am ninety-five, I have the body of a twenty-one year old.  I also own rubber face masks, lots of makeup, an audio mp3 player full of tracks of harsh breathing, coughing, and gasping for breath set on shuffle.  And that is why I'm a refusenik, refusing a medical robot, because if I had one, it would surely note that I was not sick.

Gently slipping the reconditioned core back in,  and then I test ran the bot.  It did not turn on.  Aaargh.  I leaned my head forward, and rested it on the robot's outer case.  The logic was sound, the power taps were good, what was I missing?

Carter Hallmanson walked into the weapon shop, already carrying. The still, but cold air of the outer vestibule was welcome, and the heavy warmth after passing the inner wire grated glass portal was soothing.  He unwrapped his blue and green, and every other color scarf from around his neck, and then slipped off the outer padded gloves to reveal black, leather fingerless gloves suited for shooting.

The tall, stout man, shaped like a beer bottle six and a half feet tall, and clad in a brightly checked button up shirt smiled at Carter, but the eyes revealed the true story.  Interest.  Those gloves showed a serous shooter, or a wannabee, and Carter, with his weary eyes, and his perfect posture did not look pretentious in the least.  He looked like a man, a surprisingly young one for the look, of someone who had been there and done it enough that he had nothing to prove.

Carter nodded politely, and stepped across the pocked linoleum floor to the glass counter case running the length of the room sideways, all seventy feet.  He unbuttoned his coat, letting his skin breath a bit, letting out the winter chill.
"What can I do you for?" The clerk asked.

"I'm a man that was robbed." Here Carter handed the clerk, and gun expert a short newspaper article showing him complaining about being robbed from the driveway in front of his house.
"The thief took the gun safe, thinking it was filled with gold, and instead it was guns.  So to avoid being caught with a gun which he'd stolen, and get at least two years tacked on, the scum dumped the lot of my guns into the Sanoyaquoyack."
The clerk shook his head in sympathy, and at the wickedness of the world while inside his heart began to beat a bit faster.
"I'm a bear hunter, and I need my tools, so if you have some..."
The clerk restrained himself from singing the Hallelujah Chorus, as it seemed like this fellow wanted to drop a few thousand, and of that ten percent was the clerk's.  Enough for him to take the wifey out on a nice weekend down by the hot springs while the kids stayed with one or the other of the grandparents.
"Well, sir, I think we might have a few.  Here, look at this Parkington .474 Adjustable...."

Kenneth sat in the shaded garden spot, holding a beautiful cabbage in his hands.  And despite his best efforts, he wasted energy and minerals in crying.

"Thank you, God." He whispered.  Slowly, so as to not overwhelm his system, he took a cleaving bite from the cabbage head with  his front teeth.  Then spitting that delicious, and juicy, and oh-so-sweet chunk out, he reached into his mouth, and released the chin catch.  With a wince of pain, the front molar set popped up so that his whole mouth was a grinding mill.

Drinking to make sure his throat was open, he followed it by swallowing some cabbage the consistency of coal slaw.  From there it travelled to his upper stomach where it would break down  further, before going to his regular stomach.  Once he got some more money, Kenneth wanted to buy another stomach.  If he could get four, then he would be able to survive on leaves and grass, and not just photosynthesis from the injected chlorophyll in his skin.

As night began to fall, he realized his planting of cabbages was an error.  There was no way he could eat the whole thing in one day.  Conscientously, he had ate every chance eh courld and only got half of the head finished.  But if he left it out here, chances were some raccoon, or other woodland beasts would make off with it.

So assisted by the almost giddy drunk of actual food rather than sunlight, water, and multivitamins (He would have passed out from merely smelling chocolate cake normally such was his deprivation.) he chose to sleep with  half the head curled up lovingly in his arms, around which he curled like a babe.

He prayed, but he did not listen that well, and if he had, what followed might not have happened.

"Its simple." The man said, slowly, savoring the sound of his own voice.  He leaned back in the boxy frame chair, ostentatiously relaxing, while across the desk, Angelique Domini trembled.

"He is a known rapist!" She protested with her eyes wounded.
"Alleged. And the female in question, if she is really such..." The man smirked. "Is trailor trash. Low class, not like you."
"She got herself out of that. Got two scholarships...."
"Now that's the sort of thinking that is really unhelpful.  You know what the consensus on your private netboard of pundits is....why are you being so....unhelpful?"
She paled, and then stuck her trembling chin out.
"I, I call myself a protector of women.  How can I be one without, y'know..."
The man shook his head.
"No, I don't know. We do know that the candidate has promised to improve women's health care.  You care about that, don't you?" The wheedling insinuation that she did not was in his voice, and a flush came to the pallor of her cheeks.
"Of course, I do, but..."
The man sighed, and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees with an air of distaste.
"Angelique, you know that Hopsman Grant? You won.  Thing is, you didn't.  There were five better qualified entries than yours.  One was simply stellar.  We tried to recruit him, but he told us to buzz off."
"You're....lying." The words poured out at first in violent force, but then died to a trickle.  And the man sadly shook his head.
"The Konigsberg Award, Mt. Delagi, and even Stovepipers, we helped you win, all the way back to your seventh grade when you came on our radar."
"Come on, this is a joke.  You would need a lot of people to read all that, wouldn't you?"  There was pleading in her voice.
"No.  Just a few computers.  We scatter through broadcasts certain words likely to appeal to certain mindsets. Power words. Jokes. Clever putdowns.  Its surprising how few of these land in our opposition., and how many landed in yours.  Then we simply have the computer scan the Education Database for number of usages, and we found you.  Thus you won.

After that, a picture of you was subjected to 'aging' which revealed you would be rather easy on the eyes now, despite a bit of dorkness in highschool.  Finding a young, attractive female who is passionate about politics, and not of the opposition is difficult.  Most girls prefer typical girl games, or are not that good looking.  So we glommed onto you, and made sure you got this position."
Her face stiff, Angelique replied.  "Even if all that is true, it changes nothing."
The man shook his head, grimly.
"Remember Carl Sparksly? Editor at Nova Journale? He started talking about how massive immigration from non-democratic societies was destablilizing our society.  Next thing you know, he's tripped, and fallen down the staris into his basement."
Angelique paled.
And then another man stepped into the office, and smacked the first over the head, rendering him unconscious.
"Angelique, you can join the Resistance, or now that your eyes are opened you can be a slave, but the time of lies is over. Who will you be?"

....the mod is almost ready, but I keep getting a launch bug...
...No, I said, I don't like cayenne on my chocolate...
....Ah, well, the price of a cotton bale dipped down hard...
...there are no guys here...

Thomas White had long ears, and a post by the doorway lintel post into the Youth Centre, just short of the buffet table.  He knew the Minecraft scripters, Dex and Lewis with their geek fascinations and pretense of not caring; Rachel with her endless complaints to her long-suffering boyfriend Marcus; the chaperone, Mr. Carmine, a farmer of some wealth who always poor-mouthed himself, and acted surprised when he came through with record profits instead of a bankruptcy, who was talking to the youth pastor, Pastor Mitch, who viewed Thomas with a barely hidden frustration.

 He also knew the other three dozen in the tiled, low-ceilinged basement that always made him feel claustrophobic.  He was here because Pastor Mitch's wife, Lauralyn of the blonde curls and warm smile had practically begged him to come, not that once here she had said more than 'hi' to him. by his quick count, there were twenty guys and fourteen females of dateable age or unmarried status within the four concrete block, painted turquoise blue walls, and he wanted to turn around to JoAnne and Essie, and say 'what am I? Chopped meat?'

Even with JoAnne's unfortunate nose, and Essie's tendency to giggle, and to go on fad diets, he would have dated either one of them.  But he strongly suspected they would give him the 'speakie no Inglische' stare if he brought it up to them that he was indeed a man, or at least a boy.

Holding the wax paper cup of badly mixed fruit punch, which had too much Sprite and too little O.J. clenched as he held himself steady against the post, not wanting to move around and force people to glance in his eyes, and then turn away, he cursed himself.

I could have been at home, kicked back, playing a game of Mindknife II, or growsing online about Presidente Hillarious' latest screw-up, but I believed a pretty smile that promised things would be different.

Crushing the top of the punch, releasing frustration, and not liquid, he spun to the right and the the exit, and right into a girl holding out a cell phone.  Her eyes were dark as a winter wood, and her hair straight and glossy and black, and her eyes looked interested...And then the phone in her hand met fruit punch.  An 'oh' face of dismay, and then before he could stammer out a word of apology even as he noted her looks, he saw an arc of electricity run across the surface of the phone.

He began to point to it, and another larger arc leapt from the back to the front.
"Uh." The girl looked up at him, fright on her face, and he reacted, striking the phone from her hand with a wild swipe.  It went to the left, and a long, wiggling arc danced from the flying phone to his index finger.  And inside the arc, yellow globules floated, and flowed, and ...

Kzzzzaappp!!

A trilling chirp, and a splash of water caught Thomas' attention.  The manicured park under a black cloud filled sky frightened him, on both the temporary and the deep held levels, but a sudden downrinse of rain, pelting, heavy drops, rising to a cloudburst drove from his mind the deeper worries of 'what is going on'.  Instead, he rose, tripped, grabbed the book he fell over, and bolted toward the shape of the building seen through the trees.

In seconds, he was under a porch on the side of an enormous mansion.  Here, covered, but with blustery winds coming in after him, and occasional raindrops hijacked, he had time to consider.
"Where am I? How'd I get here?"
"Agiurri Manor, sir.  Unknown. The Housesys first detected your presence, five minutes, forty seconds ago on the West Lawn."
Thomas jumped.
"Who? What?" He looked about.
"Agiurri Housesys, sir. Do you need assistance?"
"Um, I'm not sure." Thomas crinkled his forehead.
"A scan reveals you to be in general good health, although you have incipient sinsusitis, and easily corrected vision problems."
Thomas nodded, and pushed his glasses back up on his face.
"You do show signs of emotional distress.  Elevated heart rate, and breathing, along with high levels of adrenaline."
Thomas paused, his mind puzzled.
"How can you tell that I have adrenaline high?  I can see sonic sensors for the others, but..."
"We use infrared lasers to calculate your breathing and your heartrate.  Chemical sniffers sense adrenaline precursor chemicals on your breath."
Thomas blinked. Then he pinched himself.
"Mmmm. Say, uh, Housesys, do I show signs of being electrified?"
A pause.
"No. Again, do you need medical assistance? Do you wish to declare an emergency?"

Smoothing back an irritating, greasy hair lock over his high forehead, and resisting the urge to yank on it, Henri Du Champs forced his mind to focus on the math forcefully penciled in on the tax form in front of him.  The yellowed incandescent, of which he had over a hundred spare since he hated flurorescents, especially because they were mandated, shown on the pale oval of his dining room table.  Despite his most optimistic assertions, he was going to end up owing the government the money he had put aside for a fishing trip next week.

A thunderous bark like a hammer fall mixed with the steady yipping of a smaller dog out in front of his house.  Curiosity and fear drew Henri to the front door, and then out on his front stoop.

The two dogs, one a Rottweiler mix, and the other a rat terrier, owned by the Chesters, and by the Meicalheyneys both on down Bourbon Street, stood outside his knee-high iron grate fence. Reaching back inside to hit the outside lights, he got a nasty shock from the lightswitch.  The old house needed new wiring, but electricians are expensive, and although Henri was handy, he was not sure he wanted to play about with something so inherently hazardous.

Grimacing, he drew breath to yell at the 'twin mutts', when out of the corner of his eye, in the harsh flare of his outdoors halogen, a plump, white rabbit chewing at his leaf lettuce. The rodent had already chewed through a thin line, a foot-long of stalks and leaves...

Henri was aghast at the audacity of the rodent treating his private, front-yard garden as a buffet table when he noted the red collar about its neck.  And then the McMacs rat terrier burst under the fence, in a weak spot, the homeowner had continually reinforced.  Like a streak of a spear tossed at leaf level it plowed through incipient green beans, turnips, and a squash plant straight toward the pet bunny.

Henri found himself moving, even as the bunny did not.  But he was too slow on his feet, and the rat terrier closed.  Something happened, and the small dog flipped through the air, twitching to land insensate among the morning glory stands near the back fence of the small garden.

Henri stared. Stopped.
The bunny went back to eat another single leaf of lettuce sprouted directly from the soil, unlike the more typical balled Iceberg.
The Chester's Rott, which they kept because Mrs. Chester was nervous, but did not properly discipline because Mrs. Chester was nervous cleared the low front fence in one bound, and came galloping over rows of vegetables toward the bunny.
Henri stopped, not willing to go unarmed into a fight with an eighty pound dog, instead he looked about for his hoe he had been using a few hours before after he got off from work overseeing eight robots on the assembly line.  And then the bunny turned, bared its teeth, and Henri saw glittering lines extending from the paws of the the odd rabbit.

The Rott closed, the bunny leapt, and the head of the dog went down to bite.  And sparkling, very thin lines went into the dog, and it fell, stumbling away, like a drunk, its whole body trembling.  But the bunny fell, knocked back by the brute kinetic force, and it did not rise.

Dashing around the odd acting dog, Henri examined the bunny quickly.  With sucked in breath, he noted the finely groomed fur spoiled by a gaping slash in its left flank, which he noticed after it was turned on its belly.  A searching of the wound got a prick in his finger, which he figured must be the broken end of a bone.  Given that, its near comatose state, and the open wound, Henri felt overcome by pity for the strangely valiant warrior.  It must soon die, but Henri could take it inside, and let it pass in a peaceful setting, not out here, where both dogs seemed to be recovering.

Thus he tenderly scooped it up, noting that shimmering lines were no where in existence so perhaps he had seen something not there by the harsh light of the front porch lamp with the encroaching darkness so near making things strange.  Regardless, he marched back up, tenderly holding the bunny, and using one hand to open the front door, and then to brace himself against the white painted doorway lintel as his back held the door open until his fingers passed by the lampswitch.

A sudden surge, an internal fire, and he seemed surrounded by white fury, and then he knew no more.

Upon waking, he sat up, dazed and bewildered, hearing murmurs that he classified as embarrassingly intimate.  The bunny hopped up to him, grass from the unkempt lawn in its mouth, which it then began to chew as it surveyed him.

"I can't keep calling  you 'it'." He whispered.  "I'll call you 'Fluffy'."  The rabbit twitched its ears, and hopped up to nuzzle Henri's knee.  Thus comforted, and adopted, Henri looked further about finding only oddness.  To his right loomed a chain link fence of some height, and to his left was a pile of bushes from which noises had come, but no longer.

Ahead of him, a lit skyscraper of perhaps thirty stories in height assailed him with its mere existence, for Henri had lived in St. Helens, pop. 23,478, and the tallest building had been the Chester (rich relations) Office Building at five stories in height.  The nearest city of consequence was over two hundred miles away, so someone had dragged him and Fluffy far, and then dumped him and it.  This presented a serious conundrum for Henri was well aware that he was strictly normal, even white bread, and there was no cause other than malicious whimsy for his treatment that he could think of, unless perhaps he  had been mistaken for someone important, and then dumped when his true identity was realized.  This theory made such sense that he smiled in relief.

"Hey buddy." The rough male voice from the left disturbed him from his semi-happy cogitations.  Henri turned, and beheld a well-muscled man, clad in jeans and a button up striped white shirt, just recently donned if Henri was any judge.

"Look, you can do what you want with the rabbit, but not here, you know."  He paused.  "We're busy."

Henri was naturally appalled.  He was not about to eat such a pet rabbit, even if his stomach did cry out in mild anxiety for food at that moment.

"Look, I'm not going..."
"Pal, I don't care how you get your jollies on..."  And behind the first man, another came out, clad in underwear and a sash of red velvet.  Henri blinked, and started to his feet.  While he did not know any homosexuals, he was properly acculturated.  He did not know any because most lived in San Fran or other enclaves, which meant that the 1.5% of St. Helens that might be expected to live there (or about 351) had already moved  by seventy-five percent to San Fran or other such places, or died, leaving a mere sixteen active homosexuals in the whole town, none of whom Henri knew.

But he knew that they were easily offended by insults or slights of any kind, and that they were in the right to be so angered.  But still, when the third, a much younger man, dressed in a purple prom dress and high heels stumbled out of the bush, he found himself at a loss for words.  And then the real meaning of what the large, gay man had said to him came through to him, and he started to babble that he of course was not interested in sex with a rabbit, but then he realized that saying such was probably an insult, and petrified with fear, he froze, clutching the bunny hard between his fingers as he stood there.

With eyes bulging, shoulders twisted into an unnatural position, his fear radiant across his face, he presented an irresistible target.  And so the large, gay man leaned forward to give him a kiss, and then a hard shove, but before he could make contact there was a small, very small sigh noise, and a snap, and then the man twitched and fell over like in a seizure.

Taking his good luck, Henri fled bolting through the trees and bushes, past other engaged couples, and menage a trois, and alongside the fence which turned out to be the outer edge of a baseball field, and out into a paved street where a man in a car swerved toward him, almost hitting Henri but his adrenaline fueled panic served him well, and so Henri dove madly out of the way, sprawling out onto the concrete roadway while listening to departing curses doppler away from the retreating car.  The street was otherwise empty, and the rabbit, Fluffy, had already escaped from the too tight confinement of his hands.

Henri followed it across the street, and up a dark alley.

Let me handle it, she said. Justin Cameron tensed his lips, even as the four by four swayed on the single lane hill road.  Ascending from the Plain of Stomiri, into the sandstone hills to the south of it, they took a crest road, which kept puddles to a minimum, but maximized the swaying and jerking to follow the single cut through the night.

"Can we go faster, Benedict?" Justin murmured, barely heard over the groaning engine.  A fat raindrop splashing on the windshield accentuated his request.  Benedict, which was not his birth name, but the name he had been given when he took monkish vows, pressed on the gas a titch, gaining a couple miles per hour at the price of even more hair-raising whips of the steering wheel.

Doctor Cameron, Justin, you hate taling to the PR flacks, and for good reason.  I'll take care of it. Two days ago, Regina had said those words to him at the dig site, another twenty miles up the crest road.  So when he arrived to do the final meet and smile before the cameras, he was surprised to see his rather minor dig site being trumpeted all over the major newspapers, and beaming sponsors wanting to be photographed with him, rather than him having to chase them down.

If he had not heard that the storm had ripped the tarps from the dig site at Tell Holna, a small hill used by the Medicarthan People, a small pre-Israelite kingdom, he would still be there, trying to find out how negative five turned into plus five.  How poison got trumpeted as a great cure was a surprise to him.

Benedict slowed, and took from his over robe a cell phone.  Listening for a few moments, he nodded, and spoke in German his thanks.  Then putting his phone away, he sped back up.

"What was that?"
"When we go here to Jerusalem, and see your work, my work as your guide and translator, when we see its clear meaning reversed, I have questions.  Already I had some in the back of my mind, but this brought it forth."
Justin understood the bit about reversal.  The dig at Tell Holna revealed layer after layer of civilization going back four hundred years.

The earliest layer seemed to spring from nowhere, undisturbed dirt, and it was crude, but energetic.  Quickly, the next layer succeeded on this, and it kept the energy, and some of the crudeness, but added an imaginative flair.  Succeeding generations went from wood to granite to marble, and created some remarkable mosaics and elegant vases that first showed imitation, and then the birth of their own style, and then a full mastery of their style.

But then a change set in.  The art grew more lurid, and less restrained in topic, and dress so that nakedness became common.  And then what was nakedness, and could be seen as a study of the beauty of the human form became mere pornography.  At the same time, the newest layers of the city which were built on earlier layers were more crudely made, and of cheaper material put less well together.  A stucco facade covered up this lack of quality, but such a building could have hardly stood for more than a decade.

And then the Israelites came in, and burned the whole city down.  And that was the end of the Midicarthan People.

It was a clear triumph for Unwin's theory of sexual restraint leading to societal vigor, but somehow that message had been utterly revised to show the last period of classless, langourous decadence as the most insightful and energetic period.

"My contact talked to the professor who employed our winsome graduate assistant before.  Seems, on deep background, he was willing to admit that she was a 'treacherous and lying little witch'.  To avoid being sued, he had written her a glowing letter that he said he'd overdone so that those who read it could see.

Justin sighed, shook his head, and kept silent for the rest of the way home.  When he got there, he was not surprised to see all the tents still standing, and no tarps blown away.  It had been a manufactured trip to get his protesting self out of the way while the message of restraint got turned around to encourage license.

He got out of the truck heavily, and turned to Benedict, "Well, you coming?".
"But what should we do?"
"You can pray, priest.  For me, I plan to get some sleep.  If we drove back now, we'd  get there after the dog and pony show was over.

Julie Anne rose early to poke her head with its long, blonde tresses into the henhouse, climb to the high rafters of the barn to look at the straw nests which the Flying Huns simply would make, no matter the pushback, and  swack of broom to their ornery little beaked skulls.  She looked about and in the tulips, and under the daffodils yellow. After twenty minutes of sleep fuzzed thought and movement, she had fourteen eggs.

Unlike the ones bought in a store, and perhaps stored for two months, these were day old.  Mother was frying lard on the cast iron skiddle, and making fried potatoes with fresh ground pepper.  Julie Anne slid in beside her, and began cracking eggs on the edge of the skiddle, while heating up another frying pan for the ham slices.

Old Maximus, who despite his guy name was a girl, had provided many years of piglets grown to eating size to the Stockton Family.  And even now, it was banging against the fence of its wallow, waking for Jim, her second oldest brother to bring out the hot mash.  Julie got up earliest of the near adult children, but as was considered proper, she had the lightest toting, eggs rather than buckets of mash, or haybales for the racing horses which were for her brothers Jim and Dave

Brrrrrr. I'd woken up in many strange places before, but never in a metal box freezer.  Grasping a metal stand that held stacked white boxes of 'Cherrie Fruit Tarte' on its upper level, to draw me up to my agitated feet, I felt my head swim, and my body shiver.  Repressing the urge to vomit, I shuffled forward like a very old man even though I was still in my twenties.

Malt beer, hard cider, hard lemonade, some girl's daiquiri with her delighted laughter at my audacity ringing in my ear, a shot of whiskey from a drinking contest (which I won), another beer, um, a tequila...after that it got fuzzy.

Fumbling for a safety switch (the modern age's deep concern for safety is a boon to all us 'problem drinkers') at the metal door, wincing as my hand touched the cold, shiny, frost laden metal, and finding none, I resorted to occasional yells which hurt my head, and more frequent moans.

After a bit of time, a man in a commercial and plain apron over shirt and....kilt?  Whatever.  He was also anthracite black.  Compared to him, Bill Cosby and Colin Powell were white.  The worker stared at me in surprise, and when I stumbled forward, he gave way.  I think I mumbled thanks, and I kept on plodding out the back kitchen with its horrific pale blue tiled floor, and into the main room which yielded more madness.  Bean bag chairs and low tables.

A cute girl rescued me from stumbling over one of those monstrosities, and babbled something in my ear with a smile.  I shook her off, considered writing my phone number on her hand, but decided against it because I'd probably forget her once I passed out again.

The door was one of those half doors, so I fought with the unwieldy thing for a bit before escaping, and slamming it shut behind me, in two party dysharmony.  That hurt.  And the rising sing-song of street voices afflicted me.

There was no sidewalk between the skyscrapers, just a moving tide of humanity without cars, much of it clad in kilts.  Was it St. Paddy's Day?  No, that had been two months ago.

Orienting myself, I spotted an extremely tall spike of a tower, a good hundred stories.  On the side of it, in brilliant pink as long as a semi truck was a sign.  "P'Qua^^itle*".  Odd.

I decided my house, err apartment, was to the left, and set out.  Shortly I found that the crowd was moving faster, and then jumping on a slidwalk like at an airport, but in downtown Manhattan.  Hunh, why didn't anyone tell me these things, I wondered as I considered how best to arrive on the slidewalk in my debilitated condition.

Sadly, there was no one to ask for help as I was surrounded by people who apparently from listening to their talk did not speak English.  Shrugging, I leapt for it, and fell off on the other side, which was another slidewalk only going the other direction.  Oh, well, it would do, I thought as I peeled my face from the moving metal grate, and lurched back to my feet with help from some nearby folk.

"Thanks." I burped.
"Dasgno." They said smoothly.  Now where was my apartment?

The tumbling rock, spitting off ice chips, water vapor, and pebbles swung around the unusual stellar object.  The object was a yellow sun, but just a bit off, more suited for life's protection than others of its kind.  And the life waited on the third planet of seven.

A stern chase is a long chase, but once engaged, the ending was already written.  The asteroid spun, wobbled, but the gravitational pull had caught it, and it zoomed up behind the planet, and fell around it.  But each spiralling orbit was further down so that within fifteen orbits, the asteroid felt flame for the first time in is couple thousands of years of existence.

The thin upper reaches of the atmosphere stayed thin as the rock the size of Texas to be fell toward a glistening mirror.  Texas cowboys were not yet for Man had not yet domesticated horses, which was reasonable as the ancestors of those mighty quarterhorse and Morgan breeds and Clydesdale and Shetland ponies was little Eohippus.  It would take some breeding by Man to bring the small beast up to size, but for now, they fled in flocks from the Dire Wolf packs that savaged them across vast open plains.

The same hand of Man would turn Aurochs into oxen and cattle and buffalo.  It would also, in a negative way of breeding, by deliberate slaughter, drive the Dire Wolf genes from the overall Wolf Kind because no man desires to live by a pack of hunters that can carry off his wife in their teeth.

And then the rock hit the upper mirror, a thin hollow globe of ice, floating above the dense air it trapped, held in magnetic currents eight miles above the ground.  Splattering into a dozen, and then into a thousand chunks in less time than one can tell, the rock broke the globe of ice like such a hand held globe had been shattered by a hammer.

The crack propagated around the globe at supersonic speeds.  Rocks hit, rebounded and came down to break the ice globe in new spots.  In less than five minutes, the sky truly was falling.  Much of that ice turned to water, and provided the first proof to the people that they should have listened to Noah.

Burning rocks, roaring, flaming trails etched across the sky, going every which way for some, and in strange parallel groups for others chased down the falling sky, and impaled themselves in earth.

And the earth held for a long second, and people stared to relax, but then the Earth's shaking cracked the clay seals over vast aquifiers of water, which dwarf the present days supply of fresh water.  And some of this water touched magma, and magma plus water equals steam.  And that equals rapid expansion followed by volacanoes.

The thing called the Ring of Fire came into existence here and now.  And thus were the fountains of the deep broken up, and water poured into the sky, and then back onto land.  The Great Global Flood had come.

I felt...light. Waking from the weird dreams that accompany near-death and rebirth, I heard a voice.  English language, but with a strange accent, some mix of Indian and Jamaican with something else, I think.

"Who you be, mon?"

Opening my eyes, I saw two metal spiders holding my open wallet between them, which made a peculiar, but needful tableux as neither was big enough to hold the billfold on its own.  The bots rested on my right thigh, and my whole body twitched in spider-phobia, but I resisted the urge.

Swallowing to moisten my dry throat, I spoke.

"Come again?"

"Who are you, sir?"  The voice came from the air, and it had instantly and smoothly changed to Standard American.

"Lewis McTierney." I spoke, giving my birth name minus my middle, which was Patrick.  "How did you find me?"  I'm from outside this  universe, and even planet, but I arrived just minutes ago, asleep, and before I wake someone is already waiting for me?  That is some very fast reaction time.

"Multiple gravitational sensors, in effect,very large and sensitive pendulums are dotted over Luna to help us monitor the side effects of the core drills."

Luna?

"So I'm in the Earth's solar system?  What's going on here in the good old home?"  My false cheer did not even fool myself.

"Yes, we are currently maneuvering on main sail, and will soon be engaging the MCE drive to try to avoid the trailing wave of the Horde."

The thing is, when you travel from universe to universe some very weird things are possible.  I'm not sure what MCE meant, but by main sail, I could guess that we were on a ship on a Moon that had actual oceans on it, and some opposing force called the Horde, their navy, was trying to trap us.

"How can I help?"
"An excellent question.  We are not sure."

"Whose 'we'?"

"Lunamind, Terramind, NEOmind, and Marsmind has just joined in the Council."

Blink. Blink.

"Hold on, you're A.I.s ! Right?"

"Correct." The reply came instantly, and I found myself rising to my feet.  The spiders returned my wallet and retreated out of the room as I bounced lightly in the one-sixth gravity of Luna.

"So why all the other 'minds' to help steer a ship?"

A long pause.

"The Councilmind fears you misunderstand."  The voice of the assembled minds had a resonance and a terrible understanding which the lesser minds had lacked.  "We steer the Solar System using a Shdakov Sail, and Mass Coronal Ejections to avoid nearly ten oncoming stars that wish to merge systems which would be fatal since they are antimatter.  We believe their goal is to sacrifice one of their systems to wipe out Humanity forever."

I gulped, and could not find a word to say.

The Found It, a NovaBrazillian starship captained by Hector Clemente aka Thomas Wilson, a gringo from another and, and a pirate in any lined up on the distant star.  The AI, a gift to Earth from a SecondStep civilization, had been 'sold' to Captain Clemente for certain values of sold that involved bribery of the proper managers, a threat to a proper owner, and insurance fraud.

"The Lord God has enabled me to make the calculations neccessary to jump. Praise to His Glory."

Captain Clemente sighed, and took another gargle with rum before spitting it out into the zero-g or microgravity bag in his cabin.  They were under half-g thrust from the ion drive right now, riding a lightning bolt past the gas giant Perseus on the way out of the Rio System, itself but twenty lights from Earth, and closing in on Centre Point at a crawl by that measure or for insystem traffic doing a respectable clip of .001c.

He hammered the retract button in the cerametal wall (the species they bought this ship from could not see the EM spectrum so proper touch screen controls were not installed), but apart from a slight crinkle of the sinkbag nothing happened.  The ship was literally ten thousand times older than Earth, a good seventy thousand years old, and most of its systems worked, about ten percent of the time.  Clemente, as he thought of himself after so many decades, would cheerfully send this old bird into the nearest sun if he could get his hands on a decent ship.

"And now, let us pray..." Resounded through the corridors of the ship.  Sailors, being a naturally superstitious lot, especially pirates, they all stopped what they were doing, and waited as the ship AI prayed to a being the Captain did not believe existed.

Luckily this time, it was the Traveller's Prayer.  Once Clemente had forbidden the AI from praying out loud, so the AI had retaliated by quoting the 23rd Psalm, with especial emphasis on 'yea, tho' I walk through the VALLEY OF DEATH'.  The men had almost mutinied as the dolorous voice sounding of utter doom rang through the iron (iron is very common, hence cheap, so it gets used a lot) corridors of the ship.  Only a quick hand with a force blade, and a ready heat dumper, what the uninitiated call a laser blaster, kept him from being overrrun on his own bridge.

First stage jump engines kicked in with a thump, and a raucous chorus of Handel's Messiah as played by J-pop Revivalists, which was Chief Engineer 172's contribution to Clemente's rising headache.  The CE was an illicit copy of a Scotty, an android made from a certain televideo show that aliens had used as a model to create a biomechanical man to help them understand Humanity.  It had been a failure, but the android was a very good engineer, and so he had been copied to all of the Outer System Navies of Terra, and to the Oort Cloud Fleet (which was a joke as there was no Oort Cloud.  The OC meant the black market center out past Pluto.)  And each copy of a copy got more and more eccentric as time went on.  J-pop Messiah was hardly that out there compared to some of them.

Gravity went away, and the ion drive shut off, a few seconds late which would make their reentry into normal space calcs more difficult.  The warp bubble had a defined speed as it was possible for space to move faster than light, and this space carried a starship so it too effectively blew lightspeed a kiss in the far rear view window.

Grabbing a hook, and somersaulting out the oval doorway (aliens, this time different than the designers.  These had been ovalloid slugs who used their sensing antennas as manipulators as well so they had cut the nice rectangles of the original doors in half the ship into ovals with no doors because being asexual they had no notion of privacy.) led him into the corridor, which was rusted iron, and Marine Boarder JellyMan.

"Tell your pet AI that I need the Hall AB space for practise with weapons."
"Ah." Clemente began.
"The boarder leader forgets that I have moved the Easter decorations from my preferred location, to another, and to this last.  All at the request of the crew, most especially him."
"I need that space to practise sword strikes. We are behind on schedule."
"You are further behind on EVA during jump sequence.  In fact, by the standards of the New Jupiter Navy, which you...claim....to have been a part of, your men are in critical failure zone.  I've informed the deckhands to get your suits ready."
The 'Marine' gritted his teeth, and Clemente spoke softly.
"Quit being a little yappy dog."  The so-called Marine turned pale white and spun away in astonished fury.  And then Clemente spoke to the AI.
"Do you have to antagonize him?"
"My mere presence and belief structure antagonize him.  I cannot make peace with a dirty, little weasel who wants me dead."
"And me?" Clemente said mildly.
"There is a 72.84% chance that you will be redeemed. I live in hope."
"But I don't want to be redeemed as you call it."
"Yes, you do.  You just don't want to change your life which you know will happen afterwards."
"I should avoid arguing with you." Clemente sighed.
"Correct. For two reasons."
"What?" Clemente sighed feeling as if he was going to hate this.
"I'm smarter than you, and I'm right."  The AI spoke calmly.
"How soon until we get to the Centre Point of the Universe?"
"Twenty-two minutes, fourteen seconds."  The AI replied.

Kevin Rasmussen
Positive: Thoughtful. He is studious and watchful to give him something to think on.
Negative: Beta, cowardly
Interesting: Desires strong redoubt of safety

Kevin is verser with four worlds, including Earth, behind him. He worked in tech support. He's been to Viking America where he picked up an axe, and a couple runes (one for pain, and another for blood loss).  He then went to The Web where he used data from the last world to learn Berserk Fury.  This world was a bit of a disaster. Then he lived for ten years alone on a post-human Earth.

Novel: Multiverser: Punk Paradise
Intro: He wakes on a pile of garbage in a corrugated shed alleyway above with spindly towers of shimmering metals and nigh-invisible black supports so that some seem to float in the sky.  He finds himself stolen from.  He resolves to track down the thieves.

Punk Paradise is a world which is post-Cyberpunk.  The 'punks won, and therefore lost.  There is one last megacorp which is like unto a monastery in the Dark Ages.

Scene Two: Tracking down the thieves.  He studies the world as he walks up the street, seeing a badly aging cyberpunk twitching, corduroy walls, concrete block walls, and glassine walls, and general squalor.  The thieves splite, and he takes the one they had all been at, assuming that its the closest as the dividing point for the loot.  He's able to follow a winding path down an alley, up over a roof, and down into a tunnel through a bldg.. behind a secret door.  On the way, he sees 'tutes, a swarm of rats, and a haze of drugs along with a poster of 'We Won. Up the Revolution!"

Scene Three: Into a pawn shop, under an awning inside a lobby atrium.  He finds out the reason for the awnings.  Some people like to go high up and snipe the floor randomly.

A skinny little thug is pitching a sale of one of our hero's items to the big, bulky pawn shopowner.  A confrontation with the pawn man, but our hero first is cowardly and tries to be reasonable, but then sees some billy bad boys swagger in and get treated more respectfully.  So he decides that even if he gets killed, hey, I'm a verserf, and I'm gonna get my stuff.  This new 'tude works.

Title: Multiverser: Witchhunt

Hero: Donald Patrick Montogmery
Positive: Deeply  understanding of his world in both tech and society.
Minus: Vengeful
Interesting: Poetic

World: Pre-Singularity World with PC tech RACING ahead.  Interesting setting: He never leaves his office/home.

Intro:

The building conformed to the shape of a twenty-sided die set on a mountain sub-summit, not because Donald Patrick Montgomery played much D&D anymore, but because he could.  Instead he and a thousand others were engaged in a road race of sorts, toward an uncertain future, down a road by turns gravel, and dirt, wifi and optical, but always pitted, winding, and treacherous with many dead ends that promised to be excellent shortcuts, and long, seemingly safe ways that never were for being last was as good as crashing in this race.  Donald had an advantage over all the others, he had been born in the time of mainframes, and started a PC company in a garage.  But something had happened, and he had fallen out of that universe, and into another, and another, and yet another until this one.

He had seen the birth, the first maturity, and even the post-human future, but now he was on the other side of that Future, and racing toward the Singularity.  Moore's Law, called Hinson's Maxim in this world, had been promulgated by Gordon Moore of Intel.  Computers would double their memory in eighteen to twenty-four months.  The doubling spread to other aspects of the personal computer, and Moore's Law became assumed.  And then the physicists were disproved, and a way was found to keep the party going on for more decades.

Nowadays, Hinson's Maxim was a distant memory from the Slow Times, back when people measured the pace of change in weeks and months instead of days, hours, and minutes, even.  Soon, this would be the Slow Times, and change would be measured in seconds, and microseconds.  Soon, a technological change asymptote would be reached, and tech change would be vertical compared to time, which meant that anyone would be able to do anything that made logical sense whether it was build a starship in my backyard, or create a virus to kill all of Humanity.  Logical sense was required, not neccessarily good sense.

"Buy out Kay Morton's biz." Donald instructed his office from the fourth floor of the die house, from his office.  It was a space almost circular, and a good three thousand square feet with a greeting stall, a free weight station, and four lab stations including a desk command center at which he stood now. By standing near his desk, he gave his words greater weight in the voting inside the quantum computer built into the walls of the house.
"Again, sir? Past history, and models indicated Miss Morton will start another similar company within two hours."
"Likely." Donald replied to the housenet, and then explained to held educate it.  "Her biocomputers are dangerous.  Too easy for scriptkiddies to turn into the latest KillDaddy virus and wipe out another city."
"Indeed." The voice of Miss Grace Kay Morton slipped into the office. There was sweet and tart in the soft voice.
"How did you break through my security, K?" The question, plus the hand signs woke up most of Donald's housenet ready to beat back an electronic invader.
"I included talking to you as part of the price of the company you just bought.  Your housenet did not see that as a problem worthy to bring up to you.  Interesting.  I would have thought I was on a blacklist."
"No, blacklist. I'd be sure to say goodbye to you moments before your little viral computers provoked God to unleash Armageddon and destroy us all."
"How sweet." The tart was more obvious now.
"What do you want, Miss Morton?"
"Aren't we formal now.  Rumor has it that you would survive TEOTWAKI.  Goodness knows, during the five years we dated, you never changed one bit."
"Good genes." Said the dimension travelling immortal rather shortly.
"I want immortality, Donnie Me Boyo.  Problem is, I can't get the so-called smart money to pony up for it."
"So you blackmail us by starting companies you know are dangerous so that we will have to buy you out?"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word.  Besides, we could avoid this timesink, and you and a few of your friends could just invest in Morton Medicals Unaging, Ltd...."
"How much?" Donald grated out.
"Fifty."
"Million? Done. I'll...."
"Don't be silly, darling. Immortality doesn't come cheap.  Billion."
"That's going to be hard to sell to the others..."
Sigh.
"Donald Patrick Montgomery! That is your contribution.  The others will need to do likewise, and..."
hangup. Donald made a peremptory gesture, and the line was severed.  A jet of air, and a tiny butterfly with tissue paper for wings came up and soaked up the sweat on his brow before falling to the floor where the roombots would clean it up later once the Master was out of the way.
Donald took a sip of water to revive himself.Even three years later, she still gets under my skin, and into my head.

"Dis won's a hardie gameboy." Daniel Archer heard the sweet, male sing-song, and would have liked to hear more, but then he shivered from the chill, and his nakedness.

Naked?  How?  A bewildered Daniel drew on his memories like as a woman at a well.  Car. He had been in a car.

Covering himself as well as he could, he forced an eyelid to crack open.  It felt like breaking the skin of a rock as if his eyes were destined to stay shut a million  years.

"Ruffentuff. Genmon be coming lahive."  The accent baffled him.  It had traces of Jamaican, but also Mexican, and Texan.

"PopM." Another bored male voice spoke from out of his possible line of sight even as a pleasant, brown face swam into view in front of him.

"Clothes." He muttered, and the face grew perplexed, but with the same professional benevolence.  And then two things happened.  A sheet, slithery, cool, of some kind landed on his lap, and a snap-stick hit his arm.  Awareness and mobility flooded through him.

Jerking upright on the plastic bench extruded from the wall of the small room, he yanked on the white pants and dark blue t-shirt offered.  They were made of some odd material, both slick and cool.  Even without shoes, he felt more comfortable.

His thoughts spun as he evaluated the small, plastic walled room, which seemed to be moving.  And both men, well one had the frame of a large man, but breasts, so a girl he decided, the one with the bored voice, were crouched over.

What happened? He recalled his Dad lending him the keys to the new car.  Laughing.  Calling it 'Dad's New Toy.' No, that had been Mom, standing in the driveway, blonde, happy, stirring a bowl of cookie dough.

"Daniel." The first voice, the man, spoke to him.  A quick murmur, and something about 'well, e's got a 'male' in the gender slot so...'  "Mister Daniel Archer.  Are you with us?"

Daniel looked up and nodded.

"Gudra, ah, good. You're a pretty hardcore gamer.  You should have your real id on you, but we're not going to bust you for that."  Daniel apprecitated the gesture even as he realized it was a calculated attempt to build goodwill.  The problem was, the statement made no sense.  But he knew from his father not to interrupt cops, nor to give them answers to questions he was not asked.  Do not confuse or irritate the man with the gun was the rule of thumb.

"You had a prescription for a minor pneumoccoccal bacterial infection, so we gave you BroadSpectrum Three.  Hopefully that will clear it right up."

That did not sound good.  Daniel remembered a week ago coming in to the doctor. Doctor Abrahamson with a complaint of coughs and generally feeling cruddy.  The doc, who had been Daniel's doc since his folks moved into the Denver area in the fourth grade, had given him a prescription for antibiotics and a warning to take them all or else the infection might come back, and be resistant.  Daniel had assured him he would, and left to get the prescription filled at Hollander's Market where a pharmacist gave him the same warning.

but what was done was done.

"Now what happened?"

"I..." There he was, top down, enjoying Dad's new convertible, which was to be honest, a lot more fun to drive than the old truck he owned, especially on a beautiful fall day like today, when....

"I...I'm not sure."

The two nodded.

"Looks like you got tagged with some MemPop.  But we didn't find any evidence of sexual behavior recently so nobody took advantage."

Daniel blinked, and wanted to scream, but instead he bit his lip.

"BP topping." The strange accent was back.  And then a snap and a stick, and he was calm, very, very calm.

"Its okay, kid. Nobody did zilch to you.  You just got tagged by some cocktail, and went to sleep for a few minutes by the pathside.  Not a big deal."

Curious definition of 'nothing'.Daniel's thoughts were cool, clear, and odd, so odd, but not in an unpleasant sort of way he noted with a disspassionate analysis.

"We're going to let you off, kid. You're clean,  heh, cleaner than a fresh zeked shirt.  Just take this card..."  The charming fellow pressed a bit of cardboard into his hand, as the two guided him to the back of the now not moving room.  The wall parted, and swung back.  They helped him step down to a sandy path.

"Go to your left, kid. Get a meal on us.  The CCS-EMT's are looking out for you, remember that."

And Daniel turned about to see the two  wave, the doors close on the back of an ambulance, and the ambulance float down the sandy path as others walked around it.  As his dispassion began to fade, he wondered why a hovercraft did not kick up sand.  And then, as if programmed, he turned, and walked into the Coconut Hut.

There he presented his cardboard rectangle to the bikini topped girl behind the wood counter.  She smiled gently at him, and spun about, and got him a tray with a plate piled high with something white, with a sauce full of colored other somethings all shredded that  he did not recognize.

Then he turned back, faintly enjoying the view of the cashier in his mind, and looked for a table, but all the tables were occupied.  This held him there for a long second, until one guy at a table with three girls, and one strange looking 'fellow?', and another guy waved him over.

"Kimmen sitten down, heah. Yah?"  And this was a whole other accent, but the meaning was clear enough so Daniel came over, and found himself sitting between two girls who would pass for supermodels back in Denver.  If not for the remnants of the calming potion he would not have been able to start the food.  But once he stared it, he found it delicious and creamy with a honey and meaty mix on top.  Plus the occasional spark of sour or flash of heat from one of the shredded veggies atop.

Once the plate was done, he looked up to see smiling faces.

"Sometimes the CoolIT Juice takes people that way.  Makes them starved."  Said the supermodel, a divine blonde to his left.  "What game are you playing?"
"Shush, you don't ask a gamer what they be play.  You ask who they be are?"
"How do you know..."  He wondered how they had found out what the EMT's had thought.  Was it that obvious to them that he was a 'hardie gameboy'?"
"We lookie you up on da perNet, natchie?" Said the ebony skinned supermodel to his left.
"I'm...Mister Daniel Archer.  I...run a software business."  Actually, in his real life he was a programmer in a small firm, well respected yes, but not running the shop.  But he figured if this was a game then there would be more chiefs than Indians.
"Veely twencen. Neatium." Said Miss Ebony Dream. "So, Mistah Daniel Archer, how do you like your visit to Cancun City-State so far?"
He blinked at her, and said the first words to shoot out of his mouth.
"A whole lot."
She blinked at his focus on her, and his enthusiasm, and then laughed, not displeased.
"I think he likes you, Gail." Said the man who had first invited him over, and gentle laughter flooded the table.
Meanwhile, Daniel's head spun.  He was too shocked to be embarrassed.
Cancun City-State.  Could be a joke. Twencen....odd, but ...but ambulances that float.  Oh, dear Lord, what is going on?
Pale and trembling,  he got up, thanked them for their hospitality, which got more laughter, and staggering made his way out.

Title: Timeline Therapist: Multiverser Novel
Doctor Gregory Schmidt
The pschyiatrist had a substantial failure in Germany, and was done.  So he immigrated to America to get a second chance.  Here he set up his practise (he is divorced with no kids as his wife left him after he failed). and was doing reasonably well when he got a strange patient who complained of never being able to finish things.
He was counselling the strange man to 'bite off smaller quests' when the stranger apologized....one of his larger quests had come back to bite him.

In come the Yakuza, ready to spill some blood.  The stranger fights back against many more men.  He strikes with weapons and skills not of this Earth.

He drives off the enemy, but the doctor and he are dying.  The doctor holds him to comfort the man, tells him 'at least your quests are over', and the verser laughs back...so not true.

And so our hero is infected with scriff, the verser dies and so does the hero.


six months later....a new practise in a new universe with various trobled climntes. His responses and inteactiomns with them are the cor of th ebook.

Multiverser: Cases of a Timeline Therapist.

1. The verser in his home world.
2. Six months later: First client in the new world, new office.
3, Man and woman on the verge of wife 'firvorcing'.  He counsels her to submission, and teaches him to become more manly by playing touch football on the weekends.
4.  A single woman being abused, yet again.
5. A married couple trying to their kid back from CPS.
6. A woman on the verge of killing her kids.
7. A young man who is under the control of a demon.

Our hero has Read Surface thoughts, Analyze emotions, minor illusions.  When he faces the demon, he is infomred 'Your petty tricks of mind and will will avail you mothng.

"This is yours, kid." Janks spoke to me as we slid up the push-walk.  I took in the red light on the top of the F6 tornado proof, vine shrouded delivery box.  It was not a 'Help Please' light as one got informed on public holovid at least thrice in a four hour cycle, but a 'If you like, you could help.'  And that was what Janks, and I, Lukuc Radici were here for, was it not?

Janks leapt out into the midst of the driveway, spun about and shouted to me.  "Lose the tude, kid."  He then snap spun back around and headed toward the no doubt nicer job on the far side of the road.

I pushed off on the push-walk, but not as precisely as Janks, which turned out to be good.  For I whipped around the delivery box, and up the antiquated drivedway, gravel, of all things.  I hit the ground on my gloved hands, and rested there, my fingers scraped and burning even as a door somewhere up in front of me opened, and a space of silence was followed by a huff.

A Landowner could afford anything, even a push-walk, which had little microscopic fibers imbedded in its surface to push at the wheels of an in-line skate.  To choose gravel was to pretend, very loudly that one was poor and hardworking like someone out of a prior generation before robotic factories made the most common items.

I rose to my full height, slowly, balancing, without the aid of a push-walk to calmly stare at the short man down the stairs who had begun to tap his foot in front of what I, a visitor from another universe, called the Hobbit hole doors.  Landowners typically built most of their houses underground.  My even stare got him to stop toe-tapping, but I remembered Janks saying to me earlier 'don't make them mad'.

I told him that did not make any sense to me.  We were doing jobs for them, volunteering, getting paid tips, if that, and I was supposed to be worried about his good opinion?  Janks had nodded seriously in the affirmative before going off to take another job that was easy, leaving me at that time to cool my heels in a cool box by the roadside.

"I have two jobs, if you can manage them." I gritted my teeth.  This was the typical thing, and by now I could mostly ignore it.

"Show me the problems." I said shortly to the elbow height man who glanc-glared me.  He led me in, down hallways that could have served as rooms in my apartment, and to a desk.

"My grandfather's Snap-It. Do be careful."  The metal desk was formed from shining panels and micromachined cuts so tight, by a laser fab (the ancestors of the giant robo factories that covered tens of square miles without a single human) that all you had to do was snap them together, and they were pretty much good for, well not as long as people expected.  After four decades, some started to develop bounce and sway.

The room was somewhat dirty, and nearly empty, but spacious which made it the Mechnician room.  And that was what I was, a mechnician.  Notably despite passing many pleasant chairs and tables there were none here.  Nor was there any form of outside link, which I found a little understandable.  The Landowners formed great coalitions to vote stock to control the robofactories, and so inside information from sinside their house could be quite valuable.

"I also..."
"I'll work on this first."  It had been my experience that the second problem would be harder, and that the homeowner would be unavailable for questions if I took both now.  He humphed, but hey, I was 'volunteering' so its not like he could order me to do it his way as long as I did the job.

Upset, he left me upset.  I do not understand the economics or social structure of this new universe I had found myself transported too.  They had fusion reactors and giant factories, and yet, no one had been to the Moon in over a century and a half.  But I do understand that I felt insulted.  Still, a job was a job, and interesting in its own right.

I examined the desk, and wobbled it a bit.  It had the insert cut on the left side of the top panel had under decades of pressure carved out some more space to make it not Snaps-Tight, but a Bull Loose.  Taking my laser dabber from the mechanician' tool box, I held my ammo box opne with one home for metals and another for plastic.  Heating it up took seconds, and then I laid down by laminating a layer of metalo-plastics.

It cooled in seconds, and then another shower.  The second one is coming your way.
And that micrometer expansion led to another and another.  Soon all the desks had their weakneese graded over, leven by level.  And now it was Snap-Tite again.

David Jessup, Jr.. is the verser hero who wonders if he dreams, or is he's lost to Home.  This is his hanging doom.

The murder method is a laser burst fired from outside the spaceship from far away so as to rebound from a patch on the solar sails, hit the prism in the villain's hand in the main observation deck, and zap a target.

The different locale is 3/4ths of the way to Saturn in 1973 on a nuclear Orion drive shpaceship.

The villain wants to steal the ship and deliver it to the Commies on the Moon.

Need more murder methods.

===============================

Deep Space Burn
By Eric R. Ashley

Everyone at the West Hessend Community College's Faculty Christmas Party stared at David Jessup in horrified awe as he fell back over the river of wires laid upon the floor.  A vengeful harpy, young and delicious, but furious screeched at him, Dr. Ms. Esmerald Taylor-Whitham.

"We haven't tried it enough. I am not a bad person!"  And she swept up a glass of mostly melt ice in crystal, and with malevolent awareness in her eyes tossed the liquid straight at him, and above the many electrical connections.  A flash of white, followed by yellow globules swarmed about him.  And then he knew no more.

"Everyone sit down." The Mage spoke soothingly to the class of eight year olds, all dark-headed, and black eyed except for the blonde young man in the back with green eyes.  One of his eyes was shadowed by a purpling circle, and the Mage noted the boy's tense posture.

The dimly lit room had only stone chairs and no flammables in it.  This job was in many ways well beneath a mage of Charidion's abilities, but for the very fact that one in a hundred casts by newcomers to the Arts spun out of control.  Most likely he was in for a boring morning, but if it got exciting, it would be very exciting.


The boys and girls sat, and he began to speak to them.  Belief is needful.  Without an awareness that there existed more than crude matter to the world, magic was impossible.  Just as seeing was impossible to those who willfully closed their eyes.  The mage looked about, but did not find any sign of the skeptic or mage hater.  Such were more common, but still few, in the large cities.

They claimed he summoned fire by means of ingenious tubes.  When he volunteered to 'do it stark naked, if that won't frighten your wives' they had walked away, not wanting to talk to him anymore.

"So, while you all believe, the stronger the belief the easier this is....so..." And he began to count back from twenty.  By eight, they all were in a light trance.  He then spoke words, first given to Men by the Angels, and deepened that trance, and gave them a temporary boost of faith.  Then he brought them back to the present moment.

"Cast." He snapped his fingers pointing at one lad in the first row.  With a gasp of surprise, the boy oopened his hand and saw a ball of fire hover over his palm.  "Cast." He snapped out, jabbing a finger at the next.  This one, with his faith boosted by seeing his comrade succeeed created a ball the size of a grapefruit.

"Cast." "Cast." and "Cast." again. One failed to produce anything, and the mage snarled terrifyingly 'cast'.  Petrified, the boy did.  Another row on, and the same, although this time, the mage merely sighed.  This insult motivated the proud lad, as the fear had motivated the fearful lad earlier.

And then he came to the last, and the boy opened his palm to reveal a ball of blue, and white, and transparent flame.  The mage was shocked, many masters could not produce so hot a flame.

"What? How?"
"Used to watch the funny cars at the racetrack." The lad at the back said, and the magi suddenly knew that the Powers Above had given him a quest, and an apprentice.

Taylor Howell, former Ranger, big man, Iraq war vet, History teacher at a community college, got a bum knee, could have been college, maybe NBA.
Tall, sandy blonde, spiky hair, not neat, coldly impassive stare that he works on softening, very confident, very alpha, but aware of use of betas.  Softspoken, except when very angry.  Sgt.  Infantry.

==============

"The Fall of Rome, ladies and gentlemen. That's your topic. Questions before the weekend break?" The soft-spoken voice from the sandy haired man at the front of the concrete block classroom reached the far corners easily.
"Did Rome really fall, after all, what exactly is Rome, and..." The girl in black goth spoke up from the left side of the classroom, a bag of Doritos on her desk, and a snarky tone hinted in her voice.
"And the Romans themselves did not consider themselves to have fallen, and to make things more complicated, the Eastern Roman Empire, what we call Byzantium went on for centuries. Question for you, Miss Miles, if a single drop of rain falls in a day, is it raining on that day?" The professor, Taylor Howell, replied with his cutting impatience not as well concealed as he hoped.  The flicker of smiles across the faces of those he privately considered the 'most likely to survive on point' warned him to tone it down, so he nodded amicably to the little troublemaker.
"Is there anything to get us out of the paper?  I mean, come on, five thousand words is....epic." The words might have been infuriating, but Paul Stinson never went there.  His jokes lightened the mood without suggesting rebellion.  The professor would have loved to have Paul with him on tour in Iraq.  He would have been worth an extra two days of R&R for the whole platoon all by his lonesome.
"Only if Alaric invades Campesino, Cali...fornia." That was another near miss.  Calling "California" "Cali" was a great way to get the anti-racists down on your tail despite Mexican not being a race, and the illegals themselves claiming the name.

Its my fifth universe, and my first quadruple canopy jungle.  Gravity is low, but air density is high, so is the heat, and the humidity.  Water teardrops down vines, and leaves a thin, irritating film on the bark of some trees. Fog drifted up from the coiled tangles of vegetation at my feet.

A rustle to my left, and then s blurring motion out of the corner of my eye left me running before I could think about my choice.  Crashing behind me, bellowing in a baying call, almost melodious if you appreciate a bass cello played in its lower chords came something large, much larger than the hundred seventy-two pound me.  So, I bolted, but in a zig-zag formation to take maximum advantage of my much lower turning radius.

It swung wide left and right, whipcracking at the end of an imaginary line centered on my tasty with ketchup body, shattering tree trunks behind it, bouncing off others too large to be broken by a megafauna.  I took one of these, a mangrove like tree, and spun about it, forcing the beast to spin through a full 360 degrees of turn radius.

But the huge thing, a mass larger than an elephant, with a breath composed of sewage and carrion issuing from its great, beaked mouth was smarter than me, and had turned about so it came directly at me.  I leapt for one of the hundreds of tree trunks that formed the main trunk, and scrambled aloft.  But its beak snapped off the foot wide pole I was clambering up, and I fell, down, down, to land on its back along with a thirty foot long pole.  Which I used to pole vault off its forty foot back, leaving my hands torn up, and my right shoulder screaming at me for surcease.

This finally let it understand where I, Tasty Kibble Bit, had gotten too, but I took my slim advantage and just ran for it.  Hoping somehow to find a way away, but then I came, and stopped, for I had arrived back at the fallen tree upon which I'd entered this world.  I'd spent three whole hours traversing a jungle, only to arrive back where I started, only this time, I had megafauna in tow.  Gasping for breath, I ran on.

"Okay, so you have a time machine."
"Temporal Displacement Unit, please.  Its like taking a submarine down, you have to be heavier with temporal energy to sink into the timestream, and travel into the past." Doctor Schlieffen sniffed.
"Right. So as time unwinds toward the End of the Universe, temporal particles lose ma"ss? And the Present is ...?"
"The center of the probabiiity chart on the temporal radioactive half-life.  We all experience slightly different Presents, but the universe and our brains average it out to present a seamless existence."
"Uh, okay, now you've lost me, Doc."
"Microstructure, or quantum mechanical events tend to average out in the macrostructure which is where we live.  A billion grains of salt dropped twice is going to look roughly the same to the human eye.  And the eye may well ignore discrepancies to search for the core truth.  Just like our brains with the Present Moment. If your true love says she loves you a tenth of a second too early for your Present, does it really matter to the brain?  Isn't love more important?"
"Hunh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
"Now you need to understand two things about the Past.  One, we have the Internet data....which means we have a hundred different major theories on what went down.  Many of them directly contradicting each other.  Two, many of the major factors in play, are too large to be bent by one man, no matter his advantages of future knowledge and cyberwarfare."
"Gotcha. So now what?"
"Now we bathe you in temporal energies which should increase your temporal mass."
"Should?"
"I definitely reccommend prayer." The Doctor said flipping a switch.  The universe went away for a while.
And when it came back, the chair was no longer there, instead a bench underneath him was.  And the small room, filled with devices, was gone, replaced by a bright, well-lit diner.  And instead of Dco, there was an attractive lady for a waitress.
"Would you like a coffee?"
"Would I? Oh yes." It had been a while since he had gotten coffee.  His taste buds craved the hot beverage, and so he sat there with a smile waiting for his drink which he had not tasted  in weeks.

Title: Multiverser: The Merciful Goddess
by Eric R. Ashley

Hero: James Clark
Positive: Deep; kinda honest even when he wishes otherwise
Interesting: Sentimental
Negative: Angry at God; tendency to jump in before all the evidence is in.

Question: Was Noah's Flood neccessary?  Answer: Yes.

Setting, another universe, much like our own before a Global Flood as wickedness reigns triumphant, and a Merciful Goddess dithers.  The primary modes of behavior are treachery and thuggishness with occasional outbursts of demagoguery and hideous religions.
Dragons, Nephilim, and Giants along with small Humans.

Scene One: Jim is being witnessed too at his front door, and poses the Problem of Pain in the strongest way.  His witness replies in part, but Jim explodes and turns back and slams the door and stalks across the wet floor, spilling a bucket of soap water and hitting his cell phone....

Verse out.

Scene Two: He wakes feeling angry, put upon, but the sheer good feelings of the place make it hard for him to stay mad, so he rises to his feet, sees a blackberry the size of a kiwi, and disentangles himself, and runs to the top of a nearby hill...not planning on going the whole way but he has to his surprise energy for the whole trip.

"I can't be dead because there is no Heaven nor Hell. So...perhaps I've gone to the Future with advanced cyborg tech."

Scene Three: He's examining himself for cyborgization, and enjoying his new skills when he hears a scream.  He's away like a shot, and he wonders why, but he realizes that his new found strength makes it easier to just jump in and go for it. He spots three guys chasing a girl.  Fight scene.

Scene Four: He's shocked and dismayed at killing a couple men, and then the girl tries to come on to  him, and while she's very attractive, he's not in the mood, and so pushes her back...which saves his life as she held a stilletto she was going to sink into his back.  He still gets injured, and considers taking her on, but when she realizes he won't fight she grabs some of his stuff and runs for it.

At first she had considered just running, but when she sees how weak he is, she goes for more.

Later, she stalks him, hoping to wait him out to steal more stuff.

Scene Five: He's broken and collapses in tears.  A glowing female appears near his camp, and walks up to him.  She soothes his pains, and eases his soul hurt.

She explains that she is 'not quite an angel' for she is neither warrior nor messenger for the Creator, but instead an attendant spirit on the Goddess of Mercy and Kindness who rules this world given to her by the Creator.

Scene Six: He wakes the next day, with no guidance, but happy that Mercy is in charge.  He decides to set out for a city.  He observes much about the world as he travels.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:15, Thu 15 May 2014.

Hero is a moderately travelled verser.

Scene One: Woods and smell smoke.
Scene Two: Burnt cabin, dying mother, baby.
Scene Three: Diaper change while sensing that he is being watched.
Scene Four: The Apple Orchard Man
Scene Five: Across the wooden bridge and by the ruined temple.
Scene Six: Wolf attack at night. Retreat to temple, not followed.
Scene Seven: In morning, pass unfriendly group of youngsters, one notably injured in side just like the wolf from last night.
Scene Eight: Arrive in town.
Scene Nine: Not eager to take child (relatives), and when does does so ignoring child....possible drug use with red berry.  Hero takes back baby.
Scene Ten: Meet businessman who agrees that its terrible, and how he can't get in shipments is terrible because of the wolves.

Hero: Reeve Campbell
Positive: Tough, Hardboned Cracker and Toughminded
Negative: Fury
Interesting: Box Breaking

Lots of flashbacks, mostly violent. Good with a knife.
Former vet, military lineage going back to the War of Northern Agression and then the fight at King's Mountain.  Men's adventure book.

Intro: Welcome to the New World, flashbacks of a couple sentences to compare to the old world of Earth.  Coal smoke. Peak oil passed.  Fracking is sent to China to pay down debt. Chinese own much of America and are rather thuggish about it.  Flashback to knife fight with cuckolded husband because truck out of gas, that is getaway truck.

Scene One:Search out the wider world, and get in fight with Chinese punk robbing convenience store. Thrashes punk.  Gets warned he's going to be made an example of.

Scene Two: Well Forget That!  Hero goes on sneak into local Chinese encampment to find and terrorize someone sufficient to call of the dogs....instead finds data on movement of Han nukes.

Scene Three: Book Larning.  Hero goes to the local library in Butte, Montana or thereabouts.  Has to hitchhike and walk through blowing snow to get there.  Reads up on nuclear bombs.  After five hours, really hungry, he gets a visit from two Gray Men of the US warning him not to cause trouble.  He takes offense, they do, and soon enough its a fight in the library.  He escapes by throwing an Oxford dictionary through a window and jumping out.

Scene Four: He steals nukes intended to blackmail US into final surrender.

Scene Five: He finds that his plan of nuking China won't work as the bombs will blow if they go too far toward the Far East.  And neither will turning bombs into fuel for nuke power, which would have helped. And so he thinks that he can nuke Chinse encampments on America or Orion Drive.

 Jaime Walter , martial arts student, seeker after truth, STEM student

Scene One: Use of electron microscope. Professorial sneer at biologists in favor instead of God.  Scriff out.Griffin

Scene Two: This is not real. The Mud comes.  He spreads mud wherever he goes.

Scene Three: Attempted rescue by MRT, Mud Response Team, but fail so they sedate him.

Scene Four: Wakes in hospital bed, hearing some people saying he has an unusually strong MP.  Tries to sneak out, runs into Da Bear, a member of the MRP team, and very big.  Uses martial arts, Bear closes in, clobbers him.  Is requested to stop, gives hero open hand slap and lets him go.

Scene Five: Going to roof with pretty girl who its decided by looks is most likely to get thru to him when an alarm goes off.  One of the permanent detainees is mudding in his cell, breaking through the mind shields.

Scene Six: At the cell.  Unexpectedly Hero has break thru and also helps detainee.

Scene Seven: "Let's get lunch." Says the like metal but alive young leader.  They get ambushed on the way there by a car ramp and protestors with placards swarm the van.  "Stop Imposing Your Reality."

Arthur Lewis McClaren sat down by the plate glass window in the metal frame chair, and began to play his handheld GameX beneath the faux marble tabletop for two while waiting for one of the trim waitresses to venture toward him.

"Hi, I'm Mindy, I'll be your waitress today."  The bright, chirpy act was pleasant to McClaren so he awarded it with a small smile, after he paused his game, and looked up.  His face was wide, a bit unformed and pudgy with keenly intelligent dark eyes, and black hair standing out against pale skin above his unbuttoned button-up shirt, and his navy blue tee with the new leaf green words in curlicue of 'insert clever jibe here' across his somewhat ample front.

"Good. Coffee, three creams, cheese sticks, and a bacon cheeseburger."  The flutters, and uh's amused him as she realized he did not intend to let himself wait ten minutes for another waitress to come by and place his order for food, and she might have to remember something.  He did not do it to be a jerk, although he knew well the value of that, but simply because he was in a rush and had a speech to give two blocks down the street in forty minutes at the Ritz Carlton in Mayfield, Illinois.

Pushing 'Fire Your Feminists from High Investment Projects' from his mind, he went back to the engrossing issue of how far he could successfully push a diplomatic obsurantist/secret research on the sly strategy by the Orcs before the Human Alliance called him on his duplicity.  He sent out his Tribal Chief with promises of peace, meanwhile, he engineered a coup behind his own Chief's back which would cost him in action points in the next turn, but it allowed him to continue the tactic of pretending to seek peace while secretly arming to the teeth which he was engaged in right now.

Two middle aged men, both smooth faced from close shaves, one shiny on his spherical chin and cheeks, came in, and set down not far from him.  Carefully, Arthur reviewed his security procedures.  Everything was properly passguarded.  He had left no window for a thief to sneak in, and make off with valuable data about next month's launch of 'Little Ice Age' which was a simple app game for country running as climate chills and warms came and went.

The tie and suit men did not harrumph to get the waitress' attention, but there was a shadow of the old harrumph about them.  They both ordered steak, which Arthur liked as well, but he had no confidence in the unknown cooking staff's skill.  Hamburgers were hard to mess up, for the unskilled, uncaring, or even worse, the avante garde.

They began to talk loudly and aggressively about how terrible was the rules of the local council, and how they could not find good workers, and had to hire Indians to do the work.  Arthur did his best to ignore them, having had various experiences with Indian and Chinese coders, many not terribly pleasant or fattening to the bottom line.  Americans will usually tell you if they can't do something after all, and Communist Chinese are not that serious about honesty as a 'core corporate value' with the 'ends justify the means' ethics of Communist states indoctrinated into suggestible young skulls.

It was typical chest beating

But then his food arrived, and he put his GameX handheld on the table beside him, and to his annoyance he found that set them off.  Now it was a rant by one about how young people, specifically young men were not 'manning up' and moving into the adult world.  Instead they were playing their games.

He told himself to be mature.  He pointed out the obvious insecurity of the attack to himself.  He tried to count to ten in English, Spanish, Russian and Gaelic.  But deep inside his soul was a tiny bit of hope, that reason might see through the day, and this betrayed his good intentions.

So finishing, he rose, taking out his credit card, and taking up his brand-new GameX handheld with the Scriff Inside! SpeedBooster Chip, he circled around the two to his right.  And then looming over them, he turned to them.

"The games are played because there is justice in them, and a chance.  You guys have rigged the economy so that the new players in the game have little chance of advancement.  And you then hate on those who refuse to play a rigged game and act as a Greek chorus for your ego."  He spoke evenly, but with an intense focus, and yet he was almost bored.  He had had this arguement a dozen times already.  It was as if the human race was filled halfway with the illogical, and the other half with those who could not see beyond their own nose.  Even in gaming there were plenty who wanted to be lauded for unearned advantages, and victories without courage.

"I don't think I was talking to you." The first man, whose back Arthur had seen during most of his meal spoke attempting to instruct Arthur in manners.  Arthur waited, giving the man a fair chance to recover his verse, but the man just kept on along the same line, and so Arthur turned away, muttering 'coward' under his breath.

Arthur did not speak loudly, nor did he project, but yet the man heard him anyways.  Perhaps he was sensitized to the word.  In any case, he rose yelling, his fist doubled, and Arthur scrambled back, looking for a place with firm footing where he could have enough space to put up his fists.  But the man piled into him, slamming a shoulder into his ribs and a hard right into Arthur's wrist, which held the hand which held the handheld.  And that fateful device, spun four times, and as neatly as a swoosh shot in basketball went into a short glass of ice and water.

And then Arthur tumbled backward, still trying to fight, to get a fist in, taking the glass and several plates off the table behind him.  And his handheld came down, and so did the ice cold water, and suddenly there was a flash of white light, and a smell of ozone. And Arthur knew no more.

The man had traversed the stretches, and wrinkles of a dozen different sets of space-time in search of his quarry.  He had gone to hundreds of suns under the aegis of the Galactic Emperor to sniff out thieves and treachers. Invading Hell, he had slapped handcuffs forged of mithril on to a Prince of the Netherrealms seventeen wrists.  He knew who killed the Man in the Peat and the Man in the Ice, and he had learned many things from a certain Mr. Holmes when their paths crossed.

Whatever world, whatever universe Mr. M, the Mystery Man, comes to next, murderers beware.  He is in the shadows behind you, and he never ever stops.

The girl, a blonde buxom beauty, ran scatter-witted, skittering from sidewalk to sidewalk down the nighttime street.  No one heard her cries in the warm night for it was the commercial district with plenty of warehouses and few people.  And all the security guards were inside, eyes fixed to the telly, watching the game.  Then a car came around a corner behind her....IT'S ALL MY FAULT.

Mr. M looked up from his key lime pie, and across the chrome heavy diner to a tan sport coated young fellow, more of a nebbish than anything else.  He was not at first glance a murderer, perhaps an embezzler but blood would be beyond him.  However, Mr. M had long ago learned that all men had Cain's bloody rock hidden somewhere around their persons.  So he got up, tossed down a gold coin from another realm of space-time, and went to confront the murderer.

Sitting down across from the man, he saw a well chewed mustache of brown, an untouched ceramic mug of coffee on the booth formica, and hands that clenched a pained skull, and yet vibrated at a rate a skillsaw might envy.

A quick frightened look from the youngish man.

"I didn't say anything. I'm not saying anything."  The words were blurted out, like rubber bullets on autofire, striking the Mystery Man in the face, hitting his bleak heart with reassurance of the base nature of Humanity.

Mr. M tried to sift through the thoughts of the surface of the man's mind, which was all he could do in this universe, but the fellow was so paralyzed by panic that there was nothing useful to be gained.  That only confirmed what the stench of fear rising from under the jacket and button up shirt told Mr. M.

Not wanting a scene, yet!, the man got up, and left the diner confident that the young fellow's panic would obscure any description or useful thought of himself to the young man, or anyone who later questioned him.  Once outside, Mr. M found a dark alley nearby, dispossessed a pair of street thugs by the simple expedient of slamming one's face into a brick wall, and punching the other in the solar plexus.  The mentally ill bum received stern instructions to go to the diner and get a 'real meal' on Mr. M.  Despite the cravings of liquor, the bum followed the order for the memory of a face and a brick wall and splat came very clearly to him.

Another thirty minutes, and the waitress inside, a hard woman with a hard life, had succeeded in chasing the young fellow out into the dark since he bought no more than coffee.  Looking pathetically up and down the street, Mr. M was relieved that he did not have to disable the fellow's car as he felt sure that he was not safe to drive right now, even if he was stone cold sober, which was unlikely.  His guess was borned out when the fellow, bereft of taxis began to walk.  Two miles later, he walked into an apartment complex of three story freestanding towers.

Mr. M waited outside as the fellow went up the stairs to the top suite, and entered.  Perhaps a half hour would be enough to calm the fellow down so that they could talk reasonably...and then Mr. M was moving.  A strange shadow on a wall inside the room, and he knew as if it had been painted out by an Old Master in clear, brilliant color what was to happen.

Boom. Boom.

Seconds later, the top floor door opened, and two men came out.  Mr. M skidded to a halt behind a row of metal garbage cans.  The men, in suit jackets, had a certain swagger, a drunkeness, and yet a hyperalertness which made them dangerous.  They had just committed murder, and not their first if Mr. M was any judge. And worse, they had liked it.

Mr. M frowned, and began to focus his mind so that every detail of their walk, the faintess of their voices, all might be dissected with crystalline precision later.  They left by a car on the far road, and Mr. M cursed himself for not noticing it before.  And as they drove away, he ceased recording.

Now for the hunt.

Steven Montgomery
P: Southern gentleman
M: Fierce temper
I: Strongly identifies with underdogs

He goes to sublight/jumpgate world based on Central Valley.

His family has lived in the South since well before the War of Northern Agression.  In fact, he went to school in a high school named for his great-grandfather.  His, along with five other families. ran Lucas Point.
He's very much not a SF or Fantasy guy, instead he's a basketball star, a point guard.

The night was warm, and getting late, and Steven James Montgomery, called SJ on the basketball court, was sitting on the front porch of his folk's home.  Cherisse and Billy, shyly hand in hand, stepped out, and the pretty little blonde gave him a quick, grateful smile.  He nodded back from the deep shadows of the wide porch, and the rocking chair that he usually did not frequent.  A warm, approving voice bid them 'night', and the two ran off across the gravel to Billy's tricked out truck parked under one of the many maples on the Montgomery homestead, just on the edge of the wide gravel which held a dozen more cars.

Another minute, and Michael Hall, son of Judge Hall, and Charlie strolled out.
"Nice party, Monty." Michael Hall spoke.  His speech was slow, and very clear.  One element not clearly seen by outsiders was that it was the speech patterns of gunslingers passing each other in the street.  Hall considered Monty a man, and hence dangerous, to be respected, and vice versa.
"Only turn nineteen once, Haulling."  Steven Montgomery said with a soupcon of lightness against the overall solemnity of the late evening.  Fireflies flicked on and off across the west and east lawns, and a bullfrog sounded from down by the pond where the small goat herd went to drink in the hot, still days.
"Well, you did it up right."
"Thanks, Charlies. Preciate that." It was the manner of a gracious lord to a valued friend, even if inferior, for Charlie was only a freshman being the younger brother of Michael.  There was less tension, less studied politeness.
"Oh, by the way, Wayne Briansdale, he said the construction boys will drop off a load of gravel up near your bridge.  Y'know, the hunting cabin..."  Michael said, just remembering something.  The local department of transportation was not averse to occasionally helping out landowners by dropping a ton of gravel somehwhere needed, and since the last curve above the only bridge into the Montgomery's hunting lodge had been wiped out by the late spring rains, well, if some of the high schoolers and local gentry wanted to visit, the road, even if private needed fixing.
"Excellent. Um, what about Mrs. Murphy's..."  Esmerelda Murphy was an older widow, much known for her large, and profuse garden, but lacking in monies.  So when her road got washed out, why the transportation guys were going to fix that right quick too.  No charge.
"They got that too."  Michael nodded affirmatively, and then shrugged, walked over to Steven, and shook his hand.  Steven smiled, appearing genuinely touched.
"Its okay, pal. We'll talk tommorrow. Lunch at Maybee's sound good? We can come up with a couple ideas for the county commissioners.  Bounce them off old Hoover,see what he thinks.   It will be a good summer."
The Hall boys nodded, and left, content that it would be good as the unacknowledged Crown Prince of Meechum County, Missisippi gently exercised his wiles for the good of the town.  Another half dozen came out, and laughingly thanked Steven for 'a nice party' as they wobbled half-drunk down the steps.
Steven began to step in, but then he heard from the edge of the parking lot, under another maple, the older Camwell, Mark Camwell,Commissioner say that he'd been sleeping the car waiting for his kids and their friends so he could drive them home.  Steven tried to get him an iced tea, but was gently refused, however profuse thanks were accepted, and that group left leaving still most of the later leaving guests still at large in his father's house.

It was fine, a good night, and he pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket, and began to dial up some music.  The music was a bit off, and he saw that his headphone cables were frayed.  He'd have to get a new set tommorrow.  But he put it down, and listened, and in the warm, Southern night, a bead of sweat left his forehead, and plunged.  If it had gone a quarter inch to the right, or a half inch to th eleft, or, or...or.....  But it did not.  It hit the frayed spot dead on.  And a circuit was formed.  Ordinarily there was not enough juice to do anything more than a mild tickle, but sweat, and a mysterious substance, mostly the mysterious substance called scriff had set his electrical resistance to less than zero.

And so there was a spark, and an arc, and the office of Crown Prince was vacant.

Remember Asteroid Miners, and Wolfwere Berries...

Remember the idea of sending a PI undercover into the wereseal romance CDC world to rescue a girl fallen into it...which means he has to fall into it as well.

In order to work more on figuring out how to complete stories, let's go for something really simple.

Bob knows something about Joe that could get Joe in trouble.  Joe is a funds administrator for the state of Massachusetts.  Joe is making sure that Kimmie, the sleek and chic daughter of a rich man, gets lots of rewards and prizes, and even goes further to make sure she gets extra cash for her business.  Joe does this so that Kimmie might enter conjugal relations with him, but she has no intention of doing so, regarding him as a dweeb, but a dweeb with useful cash to be sent her way.

Kimmie finds out about Bob's threat to go public at the next town meeting, and kills Bob.  She arranges so that it will be a suicide to discredit Bob, and as back up it will point to Joe as the murderer, in case story no. 1 fails.

The P.I. gets called in because Mom of Bob refuses to believe 'her boy could have done this'.  So, not believing, the P.I. goes to Bob's work, and hears workers complainng of the nasty cupcakes from Kimberly's Bakery.  He gets barred from looking in on Bob's computer (sensitive data don'tcha know....this intros him to the funds flowing through the gov't office), and he starts to be suspicious, so he breaks in at night.  Kim and Joe are there,doing their non-mating dance,a nd they catch the PI, and have him arrested.  But this opens the question for him....why were they there in the first place?

On day two, and scene four, our hero tries to get to look at the body, but he runs into Joe who claims a restrainng order and evinces a willingness to sit all day in front of the morgue door until the cremation is done.  Our hero is angry at Joe and thinks him a villain, and punches him, and gets taken off by security guards, when Joe says something odd....like how Kimmie had told him to be here to make sure the body of his friend was respected.  For, it turns out, the two men were friends, even if Bob was deeply dissapointed in Joe.

Rather than be arrested, our hero escapes and dodging police cars goes to visit Kimmie.  He faces her, and she invites him up to her apartment 'to talk in private' and so she ends up doping him with enhanced tea.  He wakes up, bashed over the head, while unconscious, accused of breaking in and threatening poor innocent Kimmie.  He's in jail again.

He accuses Kimmie, and argues based on some facts????? that it was not a suicide.  The interrogator agrees....it was Joe.  Kimmie's moved to her backup plan.  Joe totally does not understand what's going on.  Our hero has to explain to a delta the pedestalizer the facts of women, especially women like Kimmie.

He sends the data on the case to the mom, and considers ways out.  And then next day, he's released and Kimmie is arrested.  He's perplexed, but then he sees Mom.
"I read up on the internet last night how to inflict pain without bruising.  Little tramp thinks she's going to murder my boy and getaway with it?  No honey, you ain't.  She sure did scream a lot before she recorded her confession.  And I have three mothers in my bridge club prepared to swear I was with them all night."

1.Hero wakes in temperate oak forrest in fall.  He is a verser of several worlds experience.  He advances toward pleasant smoke.
2. Smoke gets thicker, and he wonders if he should advance.  Finds burning cabin, and injured woman and baby.  Comforts dying mother, and as requested takes baby to town.
3. Changes baby by stream.  Feels as if being watched.  Spots pawprint??
4. Pursued from out of sight.  Arrives in appleorchard.  Owner surprises him with pitchfork. Quickly taken inside away from watching, yet hidden pack.
5.  Baby taken care of, with apple butter for supper and goat's milk from attached shed for drink, and a warm spot behind a blocking branch by the fire for sleep.  Then harsh interrogation by the arborist who thinks he might be a clueless kidnapper.  This is cleared up, and they become allies.  He won't mention what he's afraid of for saying 'wolf' has been made taboo.
6. In the morning of the next day, birds are chirping, but later they suddenly stop.  He races madly thru the woods to a high point, which is the ruined temple on a hill....which is a place the wolves won't go.  He'd like to examine the temple, but he has a baby so he pushes on.
7. He finds a cable ride on a car with ricketty floor and more excitement that he hoped for as he swoops into the center of town, attracting much attention from a gathering crowd.  He was not supposed to use the cable car.  He needed pay Mr B to hire workers to send it back up.  No, he does not need to pay the merchant, but the town council.  No, heneeds to pay the editor of the paper to arrange a Grand Push.

He points out he has a baby.

Shock. Dismay.

Various groups decide they want baby. Then guy says 'is that so and so's baby?  they have relatives on the far side of town.'  The other groups try to press their claim but he's got more moral force than them and pushes past.

Guy who mentioned the relatives takes horse and pushes car back uphill....says he can do it the next day with the hero's help.

9. Hero sees religious speaker to crowd.  Hero decides to appeal to crowd.  At first it sounds good, but then the speech turns to how he is hurting them by suggesting they need to do something.  So it goes from tolerance to rock throwing.  He flees.
10.  He runs into another temple (wow how many temples are there?) and the women there are high p  riestesses who want to raise themselves up 'we've killed fetuses, now we need to kill a baby'.  At this point, he flattens a room full of women.  He does this in part by smashing the bldg..
11. Out of town...he meets a wolf.  Epic brawl.
12. Stumbles into homestead of uncle of baby.  Passes out.
13. Wakes up to angelically beautiful face tending to him.  He finds data about his place, about girl, and about the baby.
14.  Gets offer to stay 'I could use someone who can take on a wolf by himself, and toting a baby.  None of my girls, even trained can do that.  And few of the guys in town could.  Fact is, a lot of them are wimps, mud with no straw, paper tigers.  "I'm not much." "You know right and wrong, not just what's popular. And you're willing to fight for it. Makes you ten times the man most of those punks are."
15. He prepares to leave....mass wolf attack.  They're angry that someone succeeded in defying their terror.  The girls and the baby are taken.  The man of the house is badly injured.  He gets separated.
16.  Back to town for moving car, and asking for help.  No more religions, so he goes for biz guy and security guy.  He's a bit leary, but he heads up to the temple.
17. There he learns the truth.
18.  He goes to tell the bizman and the mil guy the truth, and in walks the religious types too....they all know.  And they're here to make sure he doesn't tell anyone.
19.  He forces the bizman to take him hidden in a cart to a wolf camp. The bizman tries to betray him, but our hero jumped out earlier and has set fires around the camp.
20. The fires panic the wolves, and our hero takes back the prisoners.

Don't forget Shikamaru's world.

1. Ten World Verser arrives in bubble dome on a ruined earth.  He's immediately made aware of a Mary Piper by his boarding pass.
2. He sets out to track it down, and sees dirty halls, and other signs embelmatic of socialism.
3. He arrives at the HQ and the guards, not knowing him, try to arrest him on the basis of being in the wrong area without papers.  He uses his Kung Fu on them.
4. Inside, he sees the hatch of the Piper, the local political leadership, and an Emmerald Sorcerer Duke. The Duke is from an alt-reality where Magic is going to a Singularity, and he and his company found the benefits of slowtime worlds to keep up with the magic race.
He desires....the politicals want someone to rescue them from their mess up.  They talked everyone into leaving for this new dimension to turn an outpost into a habitable world, but its sooooooooo hard. And they're corrupt. And they want tokeep their positions of power.

He desires to make them peons in a slow time world like a dozen other fiefs of his which he pops into occasionally, or once a friday.  His advantages include his being an Alpha male, and not married so allthe women of the outpost are secretly inlust with him.
He's gettingimpatient and wants a small group to go....which he hasn't told of the time differential.

There is a cross dimensional Mary Piper path being built. This is one of the stops on the way.

Our hero arrives.

There are two stars in the sky, a gas giant and a varying number of moons.  Gravity is low.

The planet or moon is ocvered with water, and the humans who live here live on giant rafts built by the Gengie of Saint Crispin's Day, a Colonial starship with settlers and high tech.

There are three types of tubes growable.  The Heavy are the deep supports of the Rafts, they are Basic Truths.  There are also lessers.

The elite are being lazy and congratulatory to their circle.  They build with lessors high structures which could tip over the raft.  They make it economically hard for workers to build more heavies so as to have more flat surface.  They don't keep up on the building infrastructure of the Raft, and allow rats and barnacles to eat away.  Worse, many of the elite no longer believe in Floating.  They believe we float because we wish too float.

One trick the elite do is go 'rescue' those of damaged rafts and thus immigrants, but only the poor workers have to pay for that.  Its like Rome and the war tax, the elite get the benes and the poor get stuck with the bill.

And into this mess arrives the too intelligent and questioning verser, which because of his 'tude gets dumped down as a Bottom Level Workman.  Here he finds out about the damage,a nd the shrinking nummbers.

Remember 'Ship of Worlds' as well.

Great Rafts, a novel of Multiverser: The Game
Thomas Hillary, is coldly controlled, and able to hold a grudge.  He's relentless. He's physical.

He's taking a vid of a policeman harrassing someone when he's told to stop.  He tries to give his defense, but the cop is not listening, and his words stick in his mouth. But still there is enough to note that he's probably right.

Instead, the cop nightsticks him, repeatedly....Verse out for the first time.

Scene Two: "Am I dead?"  He's in the lowers, the hallways close to the water in a Great Raft.

Will Vaughn is a verser on his fourth universe.  He started out on Earth, went to X and Y, and then landed up in World Without Humans for the past two years.  He has a cabin, and a garden, and is enjoying life, but he's a bit bored.

He has a Read Surface Thoughts and Bad Feelings Sense Ring, and he has Biblical miracles.

And then his versing presence makes a gate from the Ship of Worlds appear in the valley next to him.

Its written from his point of view.  NOT. And maybe that of a girl on an Explorer Team.

The SOW elites are upside down, they are trained for one world, and not every one.  And they stay stuck on their goals and on maitaining their status.  And they're materialists.  Some of them are genuinely smarter, butmany are not.

Sc. One. Building up dam outside house as barrier against rains and buffalo herd.
Sc. One A.  Avoiding offer of being whore forlow pay, and getting ready for Explorer Team action...go, go, go...
Sc. Two. Look for stuff, and find cabin, and look for guy and food....guy ambushes them.
Sc. Three. Guy goes with them despite bad Feeling about ship.  Team is accosted by supervisor for bringing in another 'useless eater'.

Scene One: In 'Mage' above.
Scene Two:He discusses his need to take the odd child with Lady of Orphans, who is prejudciced against men.  He then visits the Mayor.
Scene Three: He goes to the kids 'house' and finds the kid has been treated poorly, even by the standards allowed to orphans.  Its unneccessary abuse for the pleasure of it.  The kid is not there.
Scene Four: Deeply angered, he goes to the Lady of Orphans and forces her to admit accepting bribes in a mage duel.  He crosses the line by threatening to killher.  But he finds that the kid had been scared by others to hide from him in the woods.
Scene Five: Into the dangerous woods, more dangerous for the kid.
Scene Six: Finding the kid in a cave with a monster trying to get at him.  Fight.
Scene Seven: Kid flees into cave. Falls. Mage has to jump.  Mage has tried to make friends. Kid responds with fireball, Mage to save both their lives deflects it upward which shatters the upward passage.
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Novel Name:This is the Deal, a Multiverser novel.
Hero: Buck Stewart, Southron, fixer/scrounger, big guy, a bit overweight.  Tight cut hair.
This novel uses some of the ideas of OMW, and Fear Squad.  There is an Aztec immigrant culture.
Scene 1: Making deals, getting priviledged ivy into ivy, taking in damaged scriff box...zap.
Scene 2: Odd assortment of people half arrived. Fear Company arrives
Scene 3: Wins against part of FC, is asked what he wants to not kill hostages, says he's not killing, gets data about world
Scene 4:Surrender
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This message was last edited by the player at 13:06, Tue 17 June 2014.

Novel Name: Stairstep Beyond the Stars
Hero: Jeffrey MacTaggart

Scene 1: Last stand fight in World #5 atop a dirigible against mechanovamps.
Scene 2: Meet limo man in cafe' who encourages the verser to threaten him (because the cafe is monitored by aliens in orbit.  Limo Man wants the aliens to be fearful.
Scene 3: Private convo in limo with explanations, and want the hero to go to space.
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This message was last edited by the player at 16:52, Thu 19 June 2014.

Let's try something a bit smaller in the way of an outline.  These thirty scene novels are a pain.  I need to bite off something a bit smaller.

This will start with Victorian London, but its going to play fast and loose enough that I should just call it somewhere else.

Scene One: Little Girl Blue in a Snowbank in a Great City. Our heroine is new to versing, but she has some training as a witch.  She tries to get help for the child, but the only help that seems offered is for her to become a mistress, and even that is denied by an older man embarrassed as his nephew's behavior.

Scene Two: Duel with the North Wind.  Unlike the earlier version of this I wrote, she survives.

Scene Three: Disgusted with the upright, and with men in this world, she seeks help from the Sisters in Shadow.

Scene Four: She joins the Sisters, and things seem well at first.

Scene Five: But the little girl ne'er gets well, and indeed is weakened after her meds, and remembering something of G. Washington and bleeding, she questions the meds of the day....only to find out that the meds are damaging hallucinogens.  The girl is being used as a portal for Things Unnatural to Pass into our world.  Only a person near death, mostly innocent, and with their conception of reality severely distorted can let these Lovecraftian things thru.  She finds this out from the bitter old pharmacope in the bassement.

Scene Five: Horrified, she sets out to leave with the girl.  But she is beset by Minions of Tentacled Squamousness. A dire prophecy is told her,...you will never leave the door of this house.

So she looses her temper, and goes all American on them.  She calls the North Wind, gives it back its name, and gives the house and most of the inhabitants to it, and destroyes the house.

Scene Six: She gets a job in a Satanic, so to speak, mill.  Its hard, but then she finds out that her nurse for the day doses the babies with laudanum to keep them from crying.

Scene Seven: She is approached at her lowest point by a darkly terrifying man who offers her  power and wealth if she just sign on the dotted line.  She refuses.  He points out that she had made promises to the Dark Powers.  She corrects him, a promise, and also points out that giving the Sisters to the North Wind could be considered a fulfillment of that promise.

He laughs, and then hits her.

Scene Eight: Princess Vickie walks in.  "Master Armand that was not needful." "Apologies, highness, but it was.  She is the sort to choose the easy path, not worthy of your kindness." 'Well, that's what makes it mercy, sir." "She will turn to evil." "It is possible. the potential is there.  But so it other potentials. Now leave us."

Our heroine is bug-eyed.

Scene Nine: "I know of you. I've investigated  you with scrying spells and visionary dreams.  Women of Two Worlds.  And yet you save a child lost in the snow."
"Can you save?"
"You are without understanding.  Do a service for me and do it well, and this child will have food and warmth and love. Fail, and there are many who need my help who will be wiser."
Filled with dislike, our heroine accepts.

Scene Ten: 'See in my glass, this farm lady, o'er plump, with no children.  See her husband unhappy.'
"Now see the cause..." Younger farm girl getting a doctor in the Great City to give her an abortion that results in barrenness.
"Now see the result..." Husband wanting children to work, to carry on his name, to love. "Who'll take care of us imn our old age?"  He tries not to blame her, but she had a bad 'tude and that makes it hard.

Scene Eleven: Our heroine is magically inserted into farm girl's life as farm girl.  She has spell to use in case hubby gets frisky.  She is to learn how to be a good farm girl, and to get her husband enthused about adopting.

Scene Twelve: She utterly fails, and gets slapped as result. Flees in dream to vickie who explains what she did wrong which is not what she expected.

Scene Thirteen: Does somethign right.  Husband tightlipped and watchful.  Our heroine continues behavior over several weeks.

Scene Fourteen: One last test of being a good wife.  Succeed.

Scene Fifteen: Delivering the little girl to her new mother.  Our heroine makes mistake and knows a bit too much about house of theirs, but its covered up.

Scene Sixteen: As leaving house with Vickie and in her own body, Vickie tossed several gold coins down and digs them into the dirt along with a spear tip, and a fragment of chain mail so that the next time the farmer plows he will be sure to find gold from a 'lost bit of Middle Ages treasure.'

Princess Vickie offers her a spot on her staff as one of her messengers.  'We try in what little way we can to fix what is broken.  Mercy to heal, and righteousness to make whole and strong.  I do not want the prideful and greedy, nor the hatefilled and treacherous, nor those so compassionate that they have lost sense for it can be a hard job which calls for hard choices.  But I could use a woman like you on my Messengers."

Dead Tree Walking, a Multiverser (r) novel
By Eric R. Ashley and John M.

Prologue: In italics. This is a description of what happened in the world.  How the ship Lauren (from the Verses New book) grounded on shore, and a seed escaped.  The 'sink or go back' orders were sent the week afterwards.  It took another week for them to be taken seriously.  But by then it was already too late.

Scene One: The Verser arrives in the middle of a deserted street in the early morning.  He looks about, and then sees an armored up garbage truck racing toward him.  He gets out his rifle, and his drone buddy from the valet bot behind him, preparing to fight.
"Come on, if you don't want to be fertilizer."

Verser has three worlds, Earth, Light Infantry Drone Corporal in the Martian Infantry, and he can call on the fighting skill of David and the strength of Samson.  He is a big picture guy, curious, idealistic to a fault.  He can easily get in over his head.

Scene Two: Up on the roof with his new friends, sniping 'rotters', tree zombies, as he gets some facts, and he tosses them some facts.

Scene Three: Next day on the roof, more sniping, and he realizes the zombies are ineluctably drawn to sound.  "What would happen if we built a big gong? Drew them to one end of town, into a building, and ..."  The two hosts are at first opposed, but then they go off to argue in private.  They come back with a yea.

Scene Four: Go sneak out, and steal a small truck for the metal for the gong.  He gets it, pushes it, and zombies rustle, and then the garbage truck comes running, gets hooked up, and away they go.  More conservative brother angry.  Other brother says 'this is not enough for me.  I need more than just a safe place.'

Scene Five: Older brother and verser in quiet.  "Look, I had to get my bro to leave his wife behind.  It was hopeless. Truly.  But ever since then, he's got a hole in his heart.  I truly wish you were a girl from some other reality.  So we're going on your mad quest, but I'm going cuz my bro needs a wife.  Me, I'm ten years older and don't much care.  I like the quiet and the shooting.  No TV, no taxes, no bs from a boss.  You okay with this?"

Scene Six: Let the Gong Ring!! The house is nearly full, and the younger bro is off to light the house on fire....when another horde of zombies show up.  Open battle...which begins to draw the zombies from in the house, out.
the younger bro needs to get up from hiding an dlight the house.  Meanwhile the other two are in an open battle with thirty zombies in the street.  Verser has to sacrifice his valet bot to get clear.

Scene Seven: Most zombies are gone. Snipe the last of them.  Now what?  "I heard rumors of an Amish farms up the road..."

Scene Eight: Zombies jumping off cliffs on top of the garbage truck.  fight on top of moving garbage truck as zombies start to defile food with their 'fluids'.

Scene Nine: Sorry, we can't take you in.  We took in a dozen kids last week, and their Sunday school teacher.  We are on practically starvation rations.

Scene Ten: As leave, zombies attack the stout Amish.  Despite angery, fellow feeling triumphs due to Christian love.  They go back to help.  Still have to leave.  Do see that the Amizh are very good zombie killers.

Scene Eleven: High Up, in the woods, as garbage truck breaks down.  Fear of things in the trees around them.  Use of campfire's logs to hold back zombies as truck gets gixed.

Scene Twelve.  "I have a plan." and "lets go way up high." and "Yep, this could work."

Scene Thirteen: Digging a ditch, and chopping trees.

Scene Fourteen: Plowing a field, and then lighting the fires.

Scene Fifteen:  Setting the State Forrest on fire.  Hopefully a controlled blaze.  Much shrieking of zombies.

Scene Sixteen: Go back to Amish, and inform them that they are now 'kinda safe' and can work on their food more rather than on security.  Tell the AMish that they don't want in, all they want is some food, and some filtered gasoline.  Because they've killed a couple thousand zombies in the last week, and they've decided to start a business in zombie killing.

The End.

Men of Influence, a Multiverser (r) novel.
By Eric Ashley

Note: This was brought on by some thought about True Blood.  About how if some vamps came out of the closet and tried to negotiate with the pols, the pols would want protection from Dark Powers.  But then the pols would be more uncomfortable with the Light than with the Dark (and in True Blood, this is shown by having the Church of th eSun as baddies).

Scene One: Our hero is cleansing  a house of 'memory spots' when dark-suited men show up to take him away.

Fred Kensington III, or "Triple" is a laid-back, humor-seeking man inclined to mouth off when he is bored, angered, or nervous.  He talks to himself a lot, and can be harsh to himself.  He's red-headed, balding, wears glasses up on his forehead, and checked shirts.  He's also full of faith as he realizes that God is so much greater than he is.  He's familiar with different types of Biblical 'magic'....gifts, Samson/David, quote and go, and trust in the Protection of God and his leading.

"For little ol me....?"

Scene Two: "Mr. Kensington, you're joining this group."  Inside is three others of spiritual/Christian nature.  They meet, but quickly decide that Something Awful is about.  So they pray.

They have a vision of teeth.

Scene Three: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Reverends, Pastors,....we in the gov't of the Federated States have an unprecedented situation.  We don't know how to begin...."
Some strange looking guy stands up.
"You have vampires."
"How...?"
"Lets not get derogatory..."
"Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.  I have over twenty years of scholarly research on occult manifestations.  Despite all the nuances one can bring to the subject, and there are many, I also concur with the young man who has visions."
"Very well. The Sanguinarii have made themselves known to us.  Having seen their formidable powers of persuasion, we thought to enlist you and yours to shield us..."
"So when do we kill them?"  Asks a large, Viking sort of man who ran a men's ministry to build houses

Those who agree with this man are shuffled off to the side.

Scene Four: Meeting the vampires with the pols.  Putting a stop to some vampire shenanigans.

Scene Five:  "We need to save their souls"....this group is also set aside as our hero wisecracks.

Scene Six: Meeting between the survivors, with religious fight, one righteous, one stupid.  A notice that the group is far smaller.

Scene Seven: More dealmaking, and someone righteous opposes part of the deal as immoral.  The pols try toseparate them, but the goood refuse.

Scene Eight: The Righteous are holed up.  A lady pol, young, comes to them, and tells them of the bad news.  The pols hate them for telling the pols to stop cheating.  Come with her if you want to live.

Scene Nine: They come, and it turns out the girl is in love with her vampire prince.  The vamps intend to slay the Righteous, and then bend or destroy the pols.  Lots of fireworks, and WARRE.

Scene Ten: Meet with the pols. The pols don't want to believe the vamps tried to betray them because that means tossing themselves into the mercy of the Righteous who are going to insist on honest gov't..

Scene Eleven: Half of the pols sneak out....and get ganked by the vamps or turned into bots.  A few of the Righteous try to rescue them but are turned back by an angel saying 'they have made their choice'.

Scene Twelve: "All right, all right, you're right." The rest of the pols yecield.  Barricading occurs on physical and spiritual levels.

Scene Thirteen: The Pols make a deal, and let the vamps in.  The pols have forged a contract to protect themselves and teh vamps recognizing poweer, have acceded.

Now to kill the Righteous.

Mass war. Righteous win. Vamps and pols die.  Last words 'there are more of us..."

Scene Fourteen: The beginning of the new order as Righteous have performed a coup, and now Triple is President.  Have him do a few things, and fade out.

I told the game designer, M.J. Young that I'd try to have a novel out by Christmas.  Setting myself a bit of a difficult goal here.  Not sure if I'm ready, but the mere trying will help me, I think.

First question: How new is the verser. Brand new, done it a bit (like Misty), or superhuman (like World a Week Tadeusz)?

I think I choose brand new.

One idea I have is of a widower who lost his wife to a car crash where she left him angry.  Three years later, and he dates occasionally, but mostly just engages in hobbies (which are??).

Verse out.

He arrives in a world much similar to ours.  Some problems are cured, some are new problems, and other things are just weird....like the National Lacrosse Pro Championships being held at the Dallas Bowl in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans.  There are no Mid East terrorists because nuclear power is widespread, and so the Blow Myself to Peace's crowd doesn't have the cash to get into serious trouble.

I need to come up with a couple things where the new timeline made the wrong decision.

Then he sees Her. His old wife, but she's alive in this timeline.  At first he's facsinated, then overcome and  he starts stalking her.

There is going to be some fighting.  She's going to go on a few dates with him.  She finds him odd, but oddly knowing.  But she's really more interested in a local Vampire.  Or is it the Pack Leader of the Werewolves.  Hard to say.

He confronts her at a bar, telling her these odd freaks are bad news.  She tells him to get lost 'you can't tell me what to do' nonsense when its clear to anyone with eyes that these guys are Trouble.

She calls for help, Trouble comes. Trouble gets angry with her.  She asks for help from our hero.  He's about to offer it, when he gets tossed across the room.  She then begs Trouble to let him live 'he's just a punk, I only love you.'  He agrees, but as soon as he and the girl are out of the room, Trouble's goons come in to play gallows music on our hero's skuil.

Our hero is dazed, but he realizes he's run into a supernatural force, and he reasons that if Satan has the powers, then God must also offer help, to make it fair.  So he starts out small, and starts piling up miracles until the two igors are down, and a vamp comes in, and the vamp gets turned to ash with fire.

Both sides disengage as both are dazed and dismayed.

Somewhere about this time, our hero runs into CDC researcher female who is studying outbreaks of new diseases.  Fact is, lets say our hero has one of these diseases.  He got it from his girl, who got it from a vamp.  See the vamps are old, have ancient viruses, and also are promiscuous as all get out...perfect breeding ground for nasty viruses.

I think the hero is going to go rescue his girl with CDC in tow, only to find that the Pack have captured her.  So he goes off to the Pack, and CDC is further horrified ('ritual organ eating of losers and prey humans!!  Don't they know  how many dieeases spread that way?')

He confronts the Pack, and makes his case. The Pack listens, impressed by his power and courage as a 'tasty human snack treat' to deal with them on their home turf.  He claims the girl.  The Pack Leader is considering it when the girl says 'don't I get a say?'

Our hero is fumbling toward a 'no' when out from the shadows walks the spiritual leader of the Pack, a hideous creature with a staff.

"She has her rights."

The vamps show up, and the vamp leader makes his plea.  Girl cannot make up her mind; CDC researcher swears under her breath.  Girl asks if she can have both guys.

Our hero stands up and says 'No.' The spiritual leader challenges him, and its revealed that the leader is a possessed werewolf zombie by some infernal spirit that is trying to provoke maximum chaos and destruction, with honeyed words.

Hero takes off with the girl. Girl tries to reconcile herself to getting with an Alpha Male Propher/Miracle Worker.  Its not as good as a vamp, or even a were but...

And then she gets dumped into a quarantine cell.

"I'm sorry.  Your, ahem, proclivities have led you to carrying seventeen separate contatious diseases, eleven of which are airborne, three of which could wipe out Humanity." Says the CDC researcher before she leaves to get dressed to go on a date with our hero.

===============

This is a subversion of Twilight and Anita Blake.  More of Blake.

Not sure if this is the novel to write.

I would suggest using the advantage of a Multiverser setting to your novel's advantage, and write about a verser's adventures in multiple universes (rather than just one).

Which universes, and which stories?  Perhaps you/we should look through the various stories you have written in Worldwalker game threads and in Practice Bits (here and on GO), select some number of the most promising ones, and thread them together into one overarching novel?

Perhaps we should all vote for our favorite settings and/or storylines... :)

That is one way to do it.  I did that with 'Beach with Dinosaurs' (terrible title).

Sure I'd be glad to have a vote.

Oak is suggesting a multiworld novel.  Now in the interest of keeping things from going on too long, I'd say only focus on one character rather than as Mark Joseph Yound did with Old Verses New and hit three characters.

I think a semi-experienced verser works best for this.

Chapter One: In Media Res: Brutal Slug Match with verser versing out.  Possibly start the book with a line on the order of "In eleven minutes, and fourteen seconds I was going to die.  Not that I knew it, for I was no seer, nor prognosticator, merely a man with a spatha sword in my right, and a heat dumper in my left.  I raised the dumper over the counter, and a thunderbolt of lazed photons struck out, and turned Mick Jackson to steam and flash cooked meat sauce.  The returning hail of fire chewed at the receptionist's desk..."

There needs to be some thematic unity.  In Ch. One, our hero, the PI is defending the daughter of a Sudanese pirate who left to become a Christian.  In the next, there needs to be some unity with the theme of 'seeking Truth brings enemies'.

Chapter Two: Visit to 20B Underground.  Its my world where everyone believes in overpopulation, and that they live in an earth w 20B people.  However, they each live in a huge complex underground that holds 2ob.  And there are many complexes.  And there are levels upon levels until we reach the surface world and meet one man, the Unacknowledged
Emperor of Earth.  There are no other people on the surface.  The Emperor is using the skimmed off wealth of 300B to terraform Mars and to build starships once he knows how terraforming works so that his descendants can rule the galaxy with Earth being a 'little mole hill'.

This takes a number of chapters.

One similarity is that the Pirate and the Emperor both claims that people are worthless, but don't want to let them go free, which suggess that people are more valuable to these dictators than they realize.

Next world:

Scene One:  Playing a video game fight scene in italics. Verse out at last bit in normal script.

Scene Two: Into the Temple of the Dying Sun area.  Blessed by ignorance.  He thinks he's playing a video game, and so he casts spells, which work because he thinks they should.

Scene Three: Arrives in troubled village. Offers to help for same reason.  Is cheered. Does very well with some girls because he thinks its foretold by the game that he will succeed with at least one.  This confidence and his 'heroism' brings him thru.

Scene Four: Looking for the Mound.

Scene Five: Facing the inside of the statues of the god of Justice and goddess of Mercy and realizing all too late, he can't get out.  This is real.  Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Scene Six: Scouting the Mound. Running from Crazy. Realizing at last second, 'hey that magic worked'.  Stands his ground. Gets info.

Scene Seven: Calling on the Gods, which is a bit hard for an atheist.  Meets one. Gets told that A. You're available and an idiot. B. You're not one of mine so why do I care if you get killed or not. C. Have we got a job for you!

Scene Eight: Bitter at the gods, he answers the front door, goes in, and meets the dustling.  Is forced to admit the god's exist to get power to destroy the undead.

Scene Nine: Skeleton with ring trap, is caught. Escapes. Tosses pebble to beat oil step, and then uses trap spike to climb past the pit.  Laughs. (He does not yet realize he is enjoying himself.)

Scene
This message was last edited by the player at 06:14, Tue 01 July 2014.

Setting: The Valley of the Phoenix; the First Finger; about the Second Knuckle (waterfall) is the city-state Nanjoram.  Three barbarian tribes lie about the city, the Na, the oRiame, and the Doskoi (across the river and up on the Highlands, the Doskoi were never really 'settled').

As the Empire of the Red Lords begins to fall due to lack of magic and lack of brutality, the outer cities are told to continue contributing, but their Legions will be removed for service deeper inland.

Now with the pots not being able to be sold across the Empire, there is not enoughwork in the city for everyone.

Worse, to find traces of magic, many are digging into the Tell of the City, and panning red glitter from the crushed stone.  This is treated very harshly, but all the richdo it,a nd get no punishment (else the rich would flee the city is the arguement).

This undermines the city walls.

A strange man in a hood hands out good gold coins bearing the image of The Dragon King.  He's hard to catch.

The Order of the Red Swords pretends its as strong asit ever was even as it limits its actions to save magic, and dyes hair bright red.

The Tower at Fingertip shows strange lights.

The Craticki cast magery by bueraucratic means and use mana very sparingly.

The oRiame can go berserk, sometimes.  The Na. use a 'pain and blood' brings lightning magic.  The Doskoi are radical autonomist flame priests.

Inside the City, the crumblingof the walls necessitates a firming.  This is created by bolts of light, steady, mirror reflected under ground....the power comes from blood magic.  Each drop of blood to Those Who Sit in Shadow Below comes closer to wakening them,and turning the area into a charnel house.

The magic dust from the ground is used by entertainers,circus folk and eateries and health mages.

I've written this idea up before but on the GO site.  It deals with electricity, lasers, and various forms of slavery.

Hero is pc builder.  He runs a small internet service and rebuilds pc's.  He's young, blonde headed, and his goal in life is the Perfect Wave.  At least for now.  Later is too hard to think about what with his mounds of student debt,and lack of jobs.  He is physically talented, strong enough, agile, with good balance, and cool perception as the worlds slows down...

Scene One: Surfing, wondering about the world on the other side of the water surface.  Some buds wave him in, and he takes his time to get a good wave, and come in strong.  Four buds ask him to come to party tonite...
"I don't have the cash..."
"De nada, man. Its a product demo party."
w"No, fifteen minutes speech, half hour tops. Here." He hands him a Scriff enabled flashing light.  Its a gimmick.
"K, but I swear if the beers are not cold, and the spokesy blowhards too long, you're taking me home.  Remember JJ, he listened to two hours on 'why you should support gov't' and all he got was a one ounce whiskey bottle, with fake whiskey in it."
JJ ducks his head, but then comes up.
"

Hero: Rangy, tshirt and tough over shirt and jeans and sneakers. Keith Vaughn. Christian who has had prayers answered.  bike messenger.

Scene One: Living in rent controlled city which means the landlord won't fix anything.  Our hero decides to mess about with the electricity on his own. Verse out.

Scene Two: Awakes on the sacrifice table.  Escapes.  Prays. Sees bike on edge of camp.  Can't get to it, if only he could jump the fire, but ....has feeling of safety. Decides to go for it when the others close in.  Jumps the flame. Flame roars up.

Scene Three: Unburnt, and new horde of warriors is coming in so he hits the bike and races away through the day on a wild and dangerous ride pursued by spear and shield armed maniacs who tend to be tall, unarmord, and athletic.

Scene Four: Tries to jump canyon on bike, but fails and goes into river long way below.  Fights river,loses bike. Floats downstream on log, unable to get out.  Gets fished out in the city by kindly sewer worker out cleaningthe harbor with a long pole and net.

Scene Five: Wants to refuse  help, but needs it so goes thru cobblestoned streets to a dirt alley and a very small, spider infested apartment with a wife and three kids.  Wife is upset 'now what stray kitten have you brought home'?  Wife mentions they don't have food to feed all the kids full meals, and they could 'Dig' (get magic dust from below which her husband strongly refuses.)  And then to his surprise, our hero hears himself saying 'make me the food first'.  He's horrified at himself, but it seemed right, still seems right, and if nothing happens he intends to give them all his coins which should be surely worth something.  Eyes wide, she does, and as Elijah....so a miracle happens here. There is food for all.

Scene six: He falls asleep to wide eyed children helping their mother.  In his exhaustion he dreams of having left stuff upriver, like his bike. He meets a cryptic hooded man in his dream.  "If the oven have no floor, nor fire, how then shall it not be broken up and made a ruin?"  He tries to ask 'why am I here?' but he can't and he awakes with a start.  Its time for dinner, and the same miracle happens which creeps him out a bit.  He's slept the day away.

Scene seven: Some immoral nastiness comes down his street, pushed by loud men in  group.  The sewerman goes fortht o stop it, but he is pushed back.  At that point, our hero has to intervene, and when asked who he is, he has no answer, but one of the kids says 'he's the Sleeping Prophet.  He'll curse you."

I know of a publisher who'd like a ACW2 outline with some written.  I don't have a lot of faith that he'd like mine, but hey, might as well.

And, I like my versers so I shall have a verser.  He's a quiet, watchful, skeptical man, inclined to private judgements, and wariness.  But he is also a hero, although he merely thinks of it as 'drat, I have to do something'.

The story is told in first person.  The question is, can one person, no matter how gifted, without initial position, change history and fate?

=============

The wind is biting, gusting off the flat plains about me, reaching down into the dip where four divided lanes of asphalt send remarkably well behaved cars shushing by.  By the scent, its hydrocarbon combustion engines, which makes sense since advanced batteries, like those in my rifle, tend to lead to hovercraft.

I'm walking alongside one of these trails, and no one has tried to hit me, or even thrown something at me.  It must be a very orderly society, but not compassionate because no one has stopped to offer me a ride.  I glance at a sign, its green, and there is a name, I suppose, and numerals that I recognize. 17.  Seventeen could be the district, county, shire, longitudinal or latitudinal number.  It could be the number of residents, factories, or governmental representatives.

I cannot read the words, although I could last night at the encampment.  Still there is some familiarity from my link last night, far faded and almost gone.  But not enough to determine an answer, or even advance a plausible guess.

Three more marches, and I'm approaching another such sign.  This has two words on it, and the number '52' and the number '13'. And I hear the creaking of air under pressure, and the singing of metal under strain behind me which is more than enough to have me turn about, and reach into my duffel bag for the hilt of Zoasnadiiur, my trusted companion on many a battlefield.

One of the large metal-beasts rolled up to me, and stopped.  Its rider, a blunt-faced, wearied man with pale yellow spikes of hair, and boxy glasses jabbed a squared finger at me, and then at his side door.  Shaking myself loose of the interpretation of other worlds, I scrambled up into the truck's cab.

The man spoke over the roar of his engine, and I reached out to touch his speech centre in his brain.

"Can you understand me, pal?"
"Yes, yes, I can."  And looking out the window at the sign, I saw 'New Brunswick, 13 miles' and "Waterton 52 miles."  That helped, but what was a mile?  Was it a Royal mile, a Chesterbridge mile, a Logical mile, or somethig else entirely?
He slipped the truck into autopilot, but kept half an eye on the road.
"So where are..."
A red Itlain sports car, top down, with a dark-haired driver, and a laughing blonded sipped by making it loo easy.
"Drat the Chinese.  Jet setting punk come to steal our women."

Despite the tramp stamp on her left arm, and the snake curled about her neck in tattoo man's ink, the crying woman stumbling down the aisle was a little too attractive.  Trip, or Lester Kensington the IVth, forced himself skyward from kneeling on the matted lush grass, and waved off one of the younger deacons. Patrick Connors was a good man, and caring, and his wife was pregnant, and Liselle May Rassendyll, in her tightly stuffed pink tee, and shredded jeans was enough to get a man thinking things he did not need to be thinking about, not with a kid at home, and one more on the way.

Trip towered over her, over the metal folding chairs, and nearly brushed the metal frame of the giant open-sided tent First Bible had rented from Cowper's Party Supplies over in Winton.  His shiny red hair, was parted in the middle,and pushed back down to the sides like the prow of a ship.  A bit of silver in the mild red, set well, and went well with horn-rimmed glasses, and a weathered face.

"Oh, Reverend Trip...." She was bawling.  He was no pastor, and as soon as his term was up, he was going to quit deaconing, because he was no longer the husband of one wife, her having preceded him due to a falling 'widowmaker' clipping her as she had brought in a birthday cake for their second grandson.  But Liselle had grown up knowing certain men as 'reverend' and Trip fit, and that was it.  Besides, Trip knew that the woman did not take to being corrected well.  That is, once you were in earnest.  She was very good at deflecting, and most rebukes slid right off her.

"My husband, well, he and my boyfriend, they got into it, and afterwards, well Josh, he was angry, so the bastard hit me."  She looked up, expecting sympathy, and instead got a grave thoughtful look.

"Josh is your boyfriend, right?" The quiet voice fell down like soft rain, not so much avoiding her armor, and going around it, and finding crackways through it to touch her eart.
"Yeah, Billy Todd is my husband, my ex that is.  He's gone out of my life."
"When's the last time he fixed up your house.?"  Billy Todd was a talented carpenter, who had enough sense not to drink on the job, or around power tools.  He was also a wife-beating drunk.
She looked aside, and did not answer at first until he prompted her.  Her tobacco hardened, but still youthful face grew warm, and she spoke.
"Last week."  She said it low and slow.
Trip rubbed his eyes with a worn hand.
"Miss Rassendyll. Liselle, we cannot help you."
"But you're a church!" She protested sharply, as if to a right that was denied her.
  "And God is Love." She added the last plaintively as if it were something she'd heard about. did not understand at all, and yet desperately needed.
"Miss Rassendyll, let me explain."
She snapped out a denial, and thrust her chin out and canted up, lips firmly pressed together
And then Josh came storming out from behind a drapery covered pylon, and straight toward Trip.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:28, Tue 08 July 2014.

"You old gasbag, you're supposed to help us, her, well, us."
"Look," Trip began and a double up fist, heavy and large, even if propelled by an arm that had a disturbingly high ratio of muscle to fat rounded third plate, and headed home plate bound with an awful inevitableness.  Trip staggered to the side, letting the blow land on his ribs instead of his stomach.
"No, you look..." Josh rared back with a stabbing finger of accusation as shouts from the others in the tent came, and as running leather shoed men ran, and as Miss Rassendyll screamed for her man to stop, but with shining eyes of approval, and a mouth built for malice.
And Trip flipped his hair back.
The next thing anyone saw was Josh flying up and over the first two rows of metal fold-up chairs to land hard on the third row.  The girlfriend began to attack him, and he put his hand on the top of her head, and propelled her to a seat where he glared down at her until she stopped cussing him.
McElroy, another deacon came running up to him, and asked if he was all right, and on receiving a nod, laughed ruefully at the sprawled Josh who was struggling, and wincing to get up.
"Step back, sir."  The two men running came up, flashing badg
A few hands went toward holsters, hidden, and the two agents became suddenly aware that they were not in a city where obedience was par for the course, but in the rural areas, where agents sometimes went, and got gunned down.  And that it was fifty miles to the next agent
Trip turned to face them, with an easy step, and if it seemed the ground shook, we can forgive the agents their misperception.
"Um look we don't want any trouble." Began the secon
"Yes, we have an invite for a man named 'Tip'.  There is a confernence in Washington.  He needs to be there.'
Trip reaches out, and beginsthe reading of the invite.

If I'd known what I know now, I'd have never hired her, and taken my chances with the Employment Board.

"You're hired." I stood from behind the little used, yet blanketed desk, and offered Janelle Snodgrass my hand to shake.  She rose, in her slim skirt, and horse-ish face, and hesitated before taking my hand.  It crossed my mind that this was a bad omen, but I kept the smile fixed to my face.

A week later, she stepped timidly into my office to complain that Harold Decker was making her 'feel uncomfortable'.  I promised to have a word with the guy the rest of the staff at my office, called 'Horndog Harry', although I was a little surprised he had gone after Janelle.  She was, well, let's be frank since its just you and me here, on a good day, she was a five.  And if she had not been slim and  young, she would have been a three.

But, while I tolerated a bit of joking, on the whole, I was after a professional shop.  We designed novelties, and I wanted our thoughts on novelties, such as those used by the Happy Meals in McDonalds, and getting the designs quickly to the Chinese so that they could make them and me much, much richer.

So I took Harold out to lunch at his favorite spot, Big Mouth Ben's, a catfish restaraunt, and let him enthuse about my new truck which was pretty sweet.  Its nice to be able to walk onto a dealership, point to the biggest truck on the lot, and say 'I want that, with chrome pipes, and I'll pay cash'.  Thing is, I work eighty hours a week doing this, and dream of it at night, and the only thing that gets me to sleep most nights is half a bottle of very good red, and some Jack, and a little bourbon.

I laid it out to him, and reminded him that I had hired the young lady so that my stats were not too tilted toward 'white males' for the EB to tolerate.  Harold shook his big head, with its flying hair in sympathy, and asked did not Luis and Jesus count?
Sadly no, they were 'white' for the purposes of this questionaire, 'white Hispanic' you might say.  I smiled at  Harold, remembering when I had hired him, he had almost twice the hair he did now.  Tempus fugit, eh?

So he agreed to back off, and I went back to tending to the hundred and one things I needed to do that afternoon.  My Mandarin is still poor, but I can swear real good in it, and I've mastered the art of 'misstating myself' with horrific insults that I then claim I did not mean because I'm only a roundeye who doesn't know the language that well.  But the supplier agrees to having his materials properly tested by someone I trust as I surely do not want to import some toxic gunk like some poor schmuck did a few years back.

Then I look over two dozen ideas, kill eight of them, recommend seven for further work, approve eight, and for the last, I stare at it in blatant amazement as Younger the Keith, who works alongside Older the Keith, showed me a tiny little gizmo that spun and jumped, and did so with an economy of materials.  The little plastic doohickey was, I figured, going to make me at least a million.

"You sir, are a genius." I said holding the tiny thing up in the air between my thumb and forefinger.
Modestly, he replied. "I know, sir." But then he gave away his real feelings by blushing.  I called in the rest of the crew to show them Keith's design, and I noted in passing that Janelle hung back against the wall, and said little that was not perfunctory while everyone else was hugging, kissing, and backslapping him according to their gender.

A week later, Younger the Keith, or as his real name was, Keith Younger, came in to my area, my drafting board on which I was drawing a Hawaiian dolphin with a leia around it, which referenced a recent kids' movie.  He was practically crying, and his eyes were bright, and staring.
"What's up, pal?" I asked, hiding my concern for the nonce.
He handed me a sheet of paper.  It stated that he was to show up in court to defend  himself against charges of sexual harrassment.  I wanted to laugh. Oh, I wanted to do what Harry would have done which is congratulate him on his prowess, but I saw that the kid was scared, and I had a duty.

Besides, Keith was, well, the type of guy who would prefer to give a girl some romantic poetry as a way of asking her out to dinner.  And he would spend a lot of time and a bit of agony on making that poem.  And, to be fair, the poem would be pretty good.  I've been to his house, the boy is a born artist.  Its not just his work, or his poems, but his house, and even his dinners.

What I'm saying is that he would never get up the nerve to sexually harrass anyone. So I told Keith firmly that we would squash this, and that of course, I trusted him.

That afternoon, Janelle came by to ask why "Mr. Keith Younger was still employed at this establishment."  I very nearly hit the roof.  My face must have betrayed me, because she shrank back several feet. Gritting my teeth, I merely said that he would continue on with his work.  She pressed me, and I treated her to one of my infamous Black Glares.

I have dark, dark eyes.  When I get mad, the pupil expands making my eyes darker still.
I have a lot of wrath in my soul, and I feel sure that tonight's drinking is going to be especially heavy.  And I'm a big, well muscled guy, and over six foot in height, so when I get real mad, most people go away.  Well, so did Janelle.  But she was not grunning away; she was strategizing, which is what i should have been doing.  Instead, I was making sure we had ennough powder past four our job.

"Gid up! Gid up!" Screamed the man yanking on my ear.  His eyes were wide, and rain went over the brim of his cap, and despite his furor, I fell back lengthwise into the sucking mud.  Cursing, he came about me, splashing rainwater up on my soaked back, even as other men marched past us.

His boot came in, and slammed into my ribs like a baseball bat.  I howled, and convulsed, and he laughed.  And then his thick boot came in again, and I did as a hundred lessons had engraved into my body and mind.

Flpping on my back, never mind the smear of cold mud slime, especially now.  I let his foot pass over me, and then caught it, and sitting up, shoved the foot upward, I was gratified to see it overbalance the man.

Hero: Well meaning liberal bike messenger
P: In good shape, tough
M: Doesn't think that much, swayed by peer pressure
I: Likes speed

S.1: Messengering, despite older brother's advice, near protestors. Doing his job.
S. 2. Takes job to protest..crashes near tent, girl asks for help in tent. He tries to help, and he's zapped and versed.
S. 3.  Alone in a woods with his bike somehow wrapped around a tree trunk. He tries to wake himself up. Fails. Deals with him being here.
S. 4. Stumbles thru woods, spots toxic waste dump, is horrified, and then enraged.  Goes to find someone.
S. 5. Hails an RV which would not have stopped for him, on outskirts of town.  Guy is at first respectful.  Then he laughs when he realizes the biker wants him to care about the wasteland.  "We can't use it, the gov doesn't let us out in the woods, so why do I care what any about the wastes?"  Biker grabs him, and fat man strikes back, with a psi attack of desperation, but soon realizes that our hero has no shields.
S. 6.  The transfer process takes time and our hero bounces between viewpoints. by clever bit, bad guy wins.
S. 7. Wake up in new fat body.
S. 8. Screaming and madness stopped by police car sent to location by bad man.
S. 10.  Off to the precinct where he gets a new ID after his old one is not existent.  Its explained to him why he needs the ID.  "This is not fair."  "You greedy little one percenter, how dare you hog your genetic riches."
S. 11.

S.11.  He's angry, and forceful, and when the hamburger stand guy wants to rip him off, he finds his new body has very strong desires for food.  And he has no money, so he rips the guy off.
S. 12.  He flees from cop pursuit by foot, and then by a clever stratagem that comes from his bike messengering days.
S. 13.  Out to the edge of town to the dump where the Unwanted live.  Here he meets them and makes friends, but then he is challenged by a thief.  How to separate him from his own thieving? He wins because of respect gained by open thievery. Perhaps not.  Perhaps...
S. 14.  He introspects about his thieving and the thief in the camp of the Unwanted.  Its wrong, and yet that man sought to use his advantage over me in cruel ways, he notes.
S. 15. He gets the carb heavy food wagon sent by the city, and sees the others lay about unconscious from too much carbs, and begs meat.  The driver laughs at him.  And he realizes that society likes him here, on the bottom.
S. 16.  He decides with his greater strength of will to take advantage of an idea someone  said last night about the value of selling his bike.  He can get real food that way.  So he leaves with a saw....and he stumbles upon a fresh kill of a deer by coyotes.
S. 17. Fight the coyotes...with saw,and thrown rock, and campfire. (glasses lenses...something his new body needs.)
S. 18. Chop up the deer, cook some, eat it.  Take rest with him, leave skin for coyotes.  Rescue bike, and go back.
S. 19. Begin process of weight lifting,walking the bike, and hunting for meat.  Lose weight.
S. 20. After losing thirty pounds, spot a Transfer Ceremony where a vicious old lady is about to transfer into the body of a young, eighteen year old girl for the first time for the girl.  Break up the ceremony which is held in someone's back yard, and the girl escapes.
S. 21. Gets captured by locals and  handed over to the police.  Police are irritated with him, but they spot his slimmer physique and that of some of his friends, and decide to Transfer slightly worse obese into these slightly improved bodies.  And make sure to tell his friends why they got targetted.
S. 22 Despairing, unable to die, he goes into the wildnerness and begs God for answers.  He remembers Job, and laughs.  Then he remembers God's reply to Job, and from there he decides to trust God, to trust that God is who he says he is.  And then he remembers the high sign, the secret sign from his friends.
S. 23.  He was driven off, apparently. But he gets a message to meet later that night, and so he does.
S. 24. Into the wilderness they all go, and the deeper the better as helicopters chase them.  For one of the police told one of his friends 'give up, you're on the bottom and you will stay there!'
S. 25. Escape into cave where young girl calls them too.  They promise her food as she is  starving.
S. 26. She serves as coach.  "The elite fams, its awful.  you work your fingers to the bone to prep your body so some nasty scum can steal it when you turn 18."  But she knows exercise and physical therapy.
S. 27.  They work hard to get back in shape, and he finds himself desiring the girl a bit.
S. 28.  He picks out an insane challenge and keeps on pushing toward it.  He starts to be a bit toned and strong as he loses a hundred pounds.
S. 29.  'We're doing good guys, but we're also just setting ourselves up for thievery. We need to be able to defend our minds.'  And so they start practising mind transfer and shields.
S. 30. A botch.
S. 31. He's tough in mind and body. And he says 'I'm going to war, who's coming with me?'  That night, the girl visits him. he refuses unless she weds him by vow.  She agrees.
S. 32. He confronts his old body, and steals it back before locking his old body in.
S. 33. Now as a respected citizen, he enters the police station, and drops smoke grenades.  He drives them out, and then destroys the property and body owners records so that no one knows hwo owns what.
S. 34  "what have you done?"  Hysterical cry by returning mayor.  "Started a revolutioln, your honor.  This place need it."  "No, I won't allow it." Says the mayor as he grabs a gun, and shoots.  Our hero verses out, knowing that the revolution will come.

S. 35 Sight of a new world.
The End.

Devon McNeill the III
P: Analytical I: Driven M: Temper

He's capable of a shouting, arms-waving real loud rant.

part one: Earth.
Part Two: Lightsecond Fourteen in NEO.
Part Three: War on Socialist Aristos Planet

Generations is used.  Prophet with Mass Energy Staff, a broad weapon.  Cyberpunk Gen X ooficers.  Men in Pammies.  Woman and children in dig down and create underground homes bubbles of steel.

S.1. Eating breakfast at house on campus, and several managers want instruction, and intrude. He quotes softly to himself what his father will say to each of them right b efore is father says it.

His father has them leave, and then asks aggressively, 'why hasn't he left yet?".  Losing his temper, he replsys the convo he had with himself on his tech device. His father turns multiple shades of color and leaves without a word.

S.2. As he looks over a production floor with multiple assembly lines and clean rooms in Tijuana, he has his Mexican born supervisor counsel him that not all skills are skills.  Having the mind to bear the stress is another thing to.

He thinks about how you can't do this in the US.  The super tells him about how Moore's Law is  suspended according to the US born tech boys they will see next, but here is a new example of tech boost, a phone....

Oh, yes, the gangs are  more scary now that things have maybe leveled out, and they still want more money.

Laugh.

Leave factory to go to brothers place.

Mexican officer working with the drug cartels gives horder gives order to shoot near the son of the factory owner to scare them into coughing up.  But the sniper has hiw own ideas, and shoots the cell phone and the kid....thus activating the scriff.

Part Two: The P.O. is the guy who later helps him meet the Olders, and eventually joins in on the Ship.

S.1. Awake to a terrifyingly handsome man lifting him up to put him on a bench.  He gets angry, and tries to fight back as he wakes, but the man disposes of his attacks, although he does get blooded.

The man is tall, almost an elflord, and has multiple glowing balls floating around him.

"Angels don't bleed." Blurts out our hero.
"One assumes so, they being creatures of spirit unlike Our Lord, but that raises an interesting question as to if an angel were damaged, say be a demon's blade, what form would that damage take?"
His rescuer is perfectly willing to sit down and speculate about angelic weaponry for the next hour, but our hero is not interested as he wants to know What's Going On, right now!!
"You took too much intoxicant, maybe with an amnesiac as a social challenge or because you were embarrassed at a faux pas at last night's party."
Yes, its party pretty much all the time.
"No, no, I...I was shot...in the chest....by a bullet."
"A bullet, how quaint."
"Thats a rather extreme challenge there, my friend."
"Hunh? No, it was...a drug dealer."
"Why would a seller of intoxicants want to shoot someone? Even if you ripped him off, he could just go to the police..."
"No, he can't, he's a criminal."
"But why?  And no, I'm pretty sure selling brain and body mods is legal."
Hero's head goes into his hands.
"Look ordinarily I would not do this, but you seem really bent.  So I'm going to access the localnet, and find your recent past."
"You can do that?"
"Well, yes, I'm a peace officer, or in the jargon 'a cop' or 'snoopy parker'"
"Track down murders, and shoot bad guys...a cop?"  Incredulous look at very nicely dressed guy.
"Well, not like that.  Besides most murderers turn themselves in.  It helps convince the autons it was a crime of passion.  Hunh, this is strange. You're not here ten minutes ago....hmmmm.....ah there you are, seven minutes, and twelve seconds ago, and you appear in the LocalNet Panopticon..."

"You mean you have cameras everywhere!!"
"Yes, but only with due cause can they be accessed....hello, this is...'yes, I'm Reynolds, P.O., yes, deputize me for 413..." Long, leary look at our hero. "OK.
And...."
"What's that?"
"It seems my friend, I've been totally wrong about you.  You're not a druggie on a challenge who borrowed a very good chameleon cloak, no, you're a gravitational anomaly, a Genuine Threat to the Planet, and all that."  Reynold's eyebrows went up, and for the first time he had a big grin on his face.
"Now I can show them what I can do."

I died the first time, over Tikrit, in a helicopter....Earth.

His next world is one of medieval darkness where orcs think they are humans, and can do human things....You have White Coats who are not Scientists, Correctors who are not Preachers but Commissars, Moral Ones instead of Writers for they are very didactic.

He is enslaved before he fully wakes up, and he is given the job of turning a water wheel for the Orc Town above him.  Its called Yall (for one day long ago it was Yale).  But in his chains, he prays.

He also tries to protect another wheelman.  He prays for him when the orcs beat the guy, and he sees some recovery, and he feels an urge to lay on hands, and the man fully recovers before his eyes, or mostly so since he has mnot the faith that the man would be f ully recovered.

Pray for Angel and an Earthquake.

Ready to clamber the wall, and a horde of orc guards descends.  Shoves the guy over the wall, and turns to fight.  Eventually verses out.

Arrives in new world, with less magic, and prays, but God is afar off, and he wonders what he did.  He prays for guidance....please.  This leads to him becoming aware of a scriff vector which leads him to another verser who is not knowledgeable and trying to pretend he's in his home world.  Our hero uses this to piece together some of a verser theory.

He decides that if he's going to be travelling to other worlds, then preparing for that would be good.  So he spends the next twenty years as a woods guide, until people start noticing he's not getting gray hairs.  There is one final daring rescue on the outside of a mountain, and he gets his picture in a blog.

Then he deliberately vanishes, but checks out the Verser in Denial.  The man is the same age he's always been after fake mustaches are taken off.  The facts are clear.  He's immortal, or very long lived.

He moves to a city, dyes his hair, cuts his beard, and becomes a cnvenience store clerk, and takes martial arts, and then moves over to professional underground fighting.  He has to leave in eight years as 'he's too good to be so young' and 'I want what drug he's using' which leads into a major fight with a boxing promoter and his thugs and an attached gang.

He verses out.

His last world is a lead up, and then a big title fight against Evil. And The End.

This is based on the world Shikamaru played in.

1. Somewhat experienced, and magically trained computech verser arrives on a cobblestoned street.  He gets in a fight by accident, and it spills over into the nearest Temple of the Five Gods.  Mage uses magic on him, and he tries to reply.  Mage's magic works, his doesn't.
2. He's in a dungeon, in a wooden cage with others in like situation. There is a possessed man, a priest of the Silent One (not one of the Five), and the duke enters with his son, Caprician.

More Later??

By the time I was five, I was an old, skilled pro at ground hog spotting; by twelve, I was bored with the 'not really bacon', by twenty, I found the whole ceremony sweet, and quaint, and a thing to be preserved against the tides of change for I could see the smiles on the faces of the little children.  By twenty-five, I said goodbye to all that.

It did not take much.

There was a girl, and some alcohol involved.  You can already guess this story is going to end badly, and it does, but this is the type of story that always can restart, even always will restart, whether the protagonist, I hesitate to call myself a hero, wishes it or not.

I'd entered Seven's Luck, which was not my kind of place, being full of loud music, and no chance to talk.  If all you wanted in a romantic encounter was a nice bod, then why not get to the point, and have a pair of opposing, parallel slutwalks down the street, and throw a lariat around the girl or guy you liked, and hope they didn't slip it off, and spit on the ground in your sort of direction.  And for alcoholic sustenance, one could borrow the Mad Dog from the mentally ill who lived on the street, which was doubtless superior to the slop I held in my right hand.

My sociology professor, in a fit of hatred inspired by my showing him up in his analysis of the effects of gun control laws (really, if you can't manage multiplication with decimals,  you shouldn't bother with math), gave me the 'opportunity to expand my mind' by going to a bunch of bars, spending money I'd prefer to spend on steak on cheap wine with colored dye, and asking a bunch of girls a ten point questionairre on how they'd been mistreated by the System aka the Patriarchy.

I walked up to a PYT, with a  hard gleam in her eyes, who was dancing at quarter volume, clearly hoping some guy would come up to examine her green lame' dress with its spaghetti straps, holding a drink in one hand, and the corner of the bar in the other to stabilize herself.

She gave me what she imagined was a coquettish glance, and I felt like groaning inside.  Perhaps, I am shooting too high, for what I can see in the bar mirror does not look that prepossessing.  Six five in my stocking feet, big boned (I am, really), and a bit fat with a face more closely resembled a light peach with curly, pale ginger hair, gone to receding foreline, and eyes of watery blue.  Most people assumed I had played center or linebacker in high school.  No one would believe I was state for ping pong, but I have very fast hands, and I'm quick on my feet.  I could have gone for football, indeed the coach begged me too, but getting busted knees like my uncle, and running around in a hundred degree heat compared to playing a game in an air conditioned hall was no challenge for me to decide what to do.

She said something about how big a fellow I was, and I grated out a smile, and said my spiel.  She must have caught on to my distaste because she made a smart aleck comment to a guy near her.  He took up the opportunity dropped in his lap, and made some comment to me.

He was a short guy, even for a guy, and well-dressed, not like my khaki colored suit, but instead he looked sharp.

"Look guy, I have just a few questions, and then you can make time with the girl."
Mistake. Oh yeah.  I aaw the girl's eyes flare, as she realized I genuinely did not like her (her petulant pouts added four  years to her age), and so she invited the other guy to 'defend her honor' at which I choked back a laugh.  I don't think she understood what honor was.

He said something, and I just stared bored at him.  Look, when you're six five, and two hundred sixty pounds, of which all but twenty are muscle or bone, you rarely get in a fight.  But on the gripping hand (yes, I read SF.) you get to endure more insults than are really needed.  Its a karmic balance, I guess, except its more of a social balance since karma has nothing to do with it.

He faded back a step, and took out his camera phone for some reason, probably to threaten to upload a pic of me with a caption.  Ooh, scary.  So I turned back to the girl, and began to quiz her.  And she screamed in outrage, grabbed the phone, threw it at me, and then followed that pitch at my head with her colored dye water plus cheap booze.

And something odd happened.  I did not feel the minor impact of a phone, nor hear the shouting of the little punkazoid, or the crazy girl, or the stinging of drink in my eyes.  Instead, I felt a thrumming all over, almost painful, and saw yellow dots in the air.

And then I woke, but somewhere else entirely.  For a moment I was glad, after all, I was out of that bar.

PS remember the Doppleganter King story.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:30, Mon 28 July 2014.

Due to the backup at the crematorium, and the steamwagon's full of protestors, I had cracked open a book of history, complete with pictures, and handy diagrams, and given my husband a Viking burial in the rowboat in the pond behind what used to be our house, and was now just my house.  He would have laughed so hard that he fell down to the patio stones, with tears in his eyes, unable to speak even as guests at one of our backyard parties laughed, but more discreetly.

It was how he loved me too, with a  fervor that scorched the soul.  Even as he lay dying, pinned by a falling pine axed with more enthusiasm than expertise in the stand across the pond, his body broken, he had been instructing me.

"Remember the yellow folder, babe, doll, dream of my..." And that was his last words.  And that was two months gone.

In the yellow folder entitled 'Emergency' was a cardboard sheet with seven intricate keys of pewter, of iron, of silver, and e'en one of plated gold.  Then came the instructions to burn him, along with a quote from the Good Book assuring me that he was with Our Father, and no necromancer could undo that bond.

 And lastly was a sketch in pencil of a man.  At the bottom of th epage was a jagged note, written in heartsore letters.  "Wear your red dress when you meet this man."  My husband as much told me from beyond the grave to set my cap for this man.

Over the next month, I had studied his face.  Lean, tired even, with a blade like nose, and a large chin, and black hair hanging in a lock over his eyes, concealing them, that I wondered if my husband had lost his mind before the end.  He has a Gift, a Seeing of future events, but many who had such powers, also gained madness with it.

So I waited in hope.

Our hero is a math major with a liking for traditional ways, and not inclined to the rushing tide of change, especially stupid change.  He also wants to find a girl, a good girl.  He's also a huge guy.

World: The Mountainous Islands of the Yareth Peninsula.  The Yarethian Empire is on the land, but the Isles of War, joined by toll bridges, and ferries, are to their north where the great warriors live.  In the Peninsula live the peasantry and the aristos.  The aristos are elvish and foppish, and the peasantry are half-elven, but have the worst traits of both races (lazy, and short lived, inclined to status mongering, and to temper...elven and human respectively).

The War Isles are largely human, although some other races mix in, here and there.  And the WI are violent, clannish, warriors.  And the WI have  Royal Hunting Grounds stamped all over them, which lets  wyverns and chimera prey on the human's herds of cattle, and on wounded humans.

The WI are told, repeatedly, how much the YE spends on them, and how much the YE helps them, and how the WI should be grateful instead of being sullen and bitter.  But, as mathmatics guy will show, the YE is skinning the WI which has a much rougher life in their mountainous islands than the peasantry with their well settled lands.  Part of the reason is that the WI have war vets who take home money and that gets counted as a gift to the WI by the YE.  Our mathematics guy is going to be able to be a leader showing what people sense to be true is in plain fact true, and the YE leaders know it.  Which is going to lead toward war, or a readjust ment of power and money in the empire.

Also the WI provide most of the warriors in the YE.

S.1. The Bar/Versing Out

S.2.

The early morning air freshened my face. Fog drifted on the river to my left, and slightly slimy to my toes was the earth path rippling up and down underfoot for the sub-tropical sun had not yet baked it dry.  The burp of frogs, the rustle of wild game in the bamboo stand to my right, and the plunk of  stone sinker on fishing line from Malitak ahead of me greeted.

The quiet whoop of Yordnak, the other boy, was a taunt and a rejoice from the smaller lad.  I came over the last pop-up to see Malitak, in his kilt of plain white linen, raise an arm to mock threaten the other. Yordnak shied away, but kept on grinning as he lay a six inch panfish on a banana leaf on t he muddy peninsula both boys stood on.

"Erri!" They both cried, but then shushed themselves for sake of the fish.
"We don't want to scare away the fish."  Yordnak explained with great, if cute, solemnity.
"Yes." I agreed gravely, and then the two boys dropped their fishing poles,and ran to me for hugs.

[[[[stampede and then tres thru village from his side.

"Next time let me hunt with  you, 'Erri?" Malitak begged.  Yordnak was not far behind in joining in.
"The Great Beasts are too much for you, young ones." I said, with a smile, thinking back to the huge creature I had seen wandering through a ravine, slowly, munching on the trees tops of those middling ones that grew along the ravine's edge. And that was that.
"True."
"Not." Replied Malitak.
"Let me finish, Mallie." Yordnak whined until Malitak signed acquiescence.
"Wannai desires furs for her leggings so when you go, we will go to the Lower Valley, where it is safe, and no Great Beasts come."
I blinked.  The two boys had a point, not that I wanted to admit it, but Wannai had the way of getting her desire, either by asking, or smiling, or by bending others to do the asking for her.  In the end you  tended to do what Wannai wanted, which is why despite her looks, I had not cast a flower at her in last month's dance.
I wanted no part of a puppeteer, most of the time, but in the midst of a dance with such a lithe young women, it was hard to remember good reasoning.  Meren was more to my taste, a shy, little thing with a cute smile that got startled out of her.
"So we can go?" Malinak asked eagerly.
"Ah..."
And then there was a thrumming underfoot.

I spun about, shoving the two young lads behind me to see a palm tree just south of the village waver, and then bend, and finally snap off.  One of the Great Beasts, a stegosaurus, stepped through the space it had made, and then began to run.  Behind it came others of its  herd, the smaller ones, not quite up to the thirty foot at the crest of its back, not counting the fleshy heat-radiating fins.

The fins were red with blood as the huge beast had need of losing heat with that titanic body mass wrapped in tight around itself, and serving as excellent insulation and heat producing muscles the size of a large pig.  The scaly skin was tightly knit together, and sealed so that it was water and air and spear proof.  On it, great spirals, such as adorn the clay pots of the People of the River, whose village was being invaded even now, stood proud.  And all about its vastness, was a fringe of fungus and moss, and even as it ran, thundered on, two birds sat calmly on its back.

"Into the river, boys, swim."  I ran, not looking back.  "To the opposite side, quickly." I yelled as I heard the splash of their entries.

Running parallel to the stampeding herd, I saw ahead of me the thatched roofs of the village.  I screamed, sparing what oxygen I could, a warning, even if it was not likely neccessary as anyone could know that the herd was coming by the sound, and the rising dust going over the treetops, and the shaking of the earth.

The herd came into the village, and all the villagers had retreated to their homes.  And the herd went under the houses, all of them on stilts, which was good for flood, and for herds.

One hut had a bamboo pole support snapped like a toothick, no, easier than a toothpick, like an uncooked spaghetti strand, but the people overbuilt their supports.  And then another, and another, and the house canted sideways, barely held up by the four remaining poles on the left side.

Ge and Dpona, and their young child....my heart threatened to burst inside me for grief and for rage. But there was nought I could do.  So I went up the ladder to my house, which the people of this kind village had helped me build when I came unlooked for into their world, and their lives.

And inside, as the remainder of the herd streamed on, I ripped open the 'lock' a pitiful thing of twisted corn husks, and took out my Dragunov.  My father bought it cheap after the Fall of the Soviet Empire.  And he gave it to me at my eighteenth birthday.  Hurriedly, I slammed in the bullets, just four, was all.

And then against my better judgement, I looked out to Ge's place.  To my surprise it was still standing, and the herd came on.  So little time had passed.  It felt as if it had been an hour, but it was mere seconds, tens of seconds.

And I was moving before thought kicked in, and screeched not to do this.  My rifle went on my shoulder with its strap over my back.  And I leapt with one foot to the top of the railing of my 'side porch', and without thinking, for how could I think at a time like this, I leapt out onto the back of the first stegasaurus under me.

He stumbled as I hit hard, and I fell forward, about to fall between two of the giant things, so I pumped my legs, and slammed face first into the stinking hide of the next.  Slipping on the fungus, so out came my knife, and in it went.

Yes, the stegasaurus is proof against the spear, but that is a bronze spear.  My knife was another gift of my father.  It was cold forged steel, four inches, and a straight handle, double edged.  It went in, and the beast yowled in outraged pain.  Roughly how you would feel if some prankster stabbed you with a hair pin in the thigh.

He bucked, and I flew up, surprised, but bycycling in the air, I went with it, and came down on his back.  To my dismay, I saw that the beast under me had flinched to the side, thus driving the monster to his right, and the one to his right further right, and right into Ge's last remaining supports.

I was running forward without thinking, and when the house crashed on the backs of the beasts, I leapt inside, and grabbed Dpona, who was hugging the baby that Ge held.  Then I spun and leapt up, and the house went on, and we left the house by the great hole in its side, just formed.  Ge followed me, and I landed on my rump with the delightful Dpona on my lap, but with no time to enjoy the moment, I set her to  her feet, and ...

The moldy living room stank of the washed dead, but that is a smell that never comes completely off, despite Dial. A grandfather clock to my left struck twelve, sending shivers th rough the air, and I reached for the door behind me to close it, fearful of waking the inhabitants.

Alas, too late.

A rushing wind, and I pivoted around and back to catch a granite hard fist in my lips.  Flung backwards, I skidded across an old chestnut table, seating for ten, and got fetched up on a high back chair of similar design.  Which then held me for a half second, before totterng over, and smashing under my abundant weight.

I reached twice.  Once for one of the leg poles with a shaved point to fit into the chair bottom, and the other to shield myself from the flow of time.  The stake was in my hand, but still I hadn't caught the flow of time in my mind.

"Its the Witching Hour, mate." Said the man in the bowler derby hat, said the thing in the hat, with the golden cravat above his white silken shirt. "All things are possible now.  And that means, not allowing you to use your freezing time powers.

Dismayed, and yet I reached.  But there was nothing, I was being stifled.  And then I saw a wave of current, and began to pull on it.  And on and on, Until suddenly that changed, and I was no longer pulling, but trying to manage a roaring watefall.

And as the power spirals up and around, back and frothe, and twice around us, and then it freezes, and we all stop.
=============================

The room was dark, lit only by the light of the moon through tall windows.  Echoes in the air seemed strange, as if a continual reverb ran through a much larger space than before.  I am an immortal verser, so I recognize when I have come to a different place for I have been cast out of many worlds, and born alive in many new.

Still the floor looked the same, and the vampire across from me, the one smelling of dead things, of carrion....and I could smell the breath mints in his pocket, and the different types of blood under his fingernails, and the slime in his throat, dried blood and gunk, and a dead fly that had flown into his throat attracted by the scent of blood that all vampires have, but got  stuck in the 'gunk' that enables the movement of these undead beasts.

And so, I came over, stake in hand, to kill, to render non compose physicallii in the Roman of the 23rd Century, a star-spanning Rome, and he looked up at me in fear and in great agony.  His eyes were over wide, and blood lines stood out in the white viscera about the eyeballs, and he croaked.

"You've killed me, thief."  And right before my eyes, he fell into chunks, and then smaller bits, and then earth, and finally dust.

And then a robot rolled up from the wall, and vacuumed him up, which was strange because we had been in a warehouse, and I was pretty sure the place did not have a robot vacuum cleaner, especially one so powerful as to clean up near two hundred pounds of ash in a few tens of seconds.

What was going on?  I accessed my time sense, the most basic of my temporal powers, granted me on another world as one of the Temporal Knights of the Cross, but found nothing.  Nothing that is but a scarred and blasted wasteland in my soul, and doubling over, I wept for the anguish of it even as the robot came back out to clean up my tears splattering on the smooth concrete floor.

Sinking, falling, dropping into a putrid sea of panic and pain, weeping bitter tears on the floor of the room, while a bothered bot tried to cleanse the floor without getting in my way, even as I kept on dirtying the floor with my tears.  I might have stayed there forever, as I am a quasi-immortal, or until I died of thirst, and then lain on another floor, in another universe, repeating my agony, world without end, but it hurt too much.

"God, help me."  The imprisoned sensation of being locked in time stepped back a half step, waiting for something.  I felt the inrushing collapse of the walls upon my face and my soul, and begged again for help.  Again, that pause came.

"I know you can, I know you will." I spoke to the Other.  Desiring to say that you would lift me up when I was fallen, but I did not so speak.  Instead, I merely repeated myself, and the walls of the crushing room of the heart slid back a bit further.  There was no sunlight, but I could take a small breath.

Sitting up, and the pain came back, both the blasting of my mind and soul caused by overuse of my temporal powers, and the grief, and panic of being trapped.  So, I prayed, and said what I knew to be the truth of the Other's care, and believed it, however faintly, and over the course of ten minutes, I gained my feet, even as emotional undercurrents would suddenly sweep in, and threaten to take me off my feet again.

Hobbling, bent over, unable to take a clean and clear breath, I made my way to the doortway, to lean on it for strength.  Now, I was clearly in a strange place.  For the past ten years, I had lived in Mayington, a sizable city on the northern Tennessee River.  While the technology in this universe was respectable, they did not have robots in warehouses that could casually dispose of a man's body.

Which suggested that I had been 'killed', and transported to another one of the almost infinitude (none of us versers know for sure) of material worlds that make up the Multiverse.  Now, this is a lively possibility as I had gone from Earth to Naga World to Mecktronix where the Christian order of knights had given me my ring, to this vampire infested city of Mayington, and will presumably if the strange entity known as Whisp is correct 'will have many other worlds to catch hawt babes in.'

But the similarity of design, the same concrete floor, the same general layout of room, even if the last had been a parlor, and this an empty warehouse.  But there had been no odd dreams, I suddenly remembered with a snap of my fingers.  And no sensation like that of being torn apart which had accompanied my trip from Mecktronix to here, and which Whisp said was standard, followed by some crack about how aswesome he is.

The only thing to do was to go outside, and look for confirmation.  Somehow I.....

"Is that man okay?" Admiral Hooper's voice rose half an octave as he pointed at segment three of the forty seg overwatch screen.  The bubbling laughter of Liason One, Elise Connor was not in the approved selection of replies to a space admiral's concern when he was on an inspection tour.  Less than that had caused a captain and a crew to be downchecked.  His frown made that obvious.  She straightened up her back, clad in the dark black of the Terra Nova Navy, and put her face into a professionally solicitous mode.
"That's...Immortal, sir. He's kinda odd."
"Immortal?" The admiral's dark blue questioning eyes bored in on the liase, who was responsible for running the semi-informal link between orbitting starship, and the Tearshell Personal Dropships.

The Launch Carrier Horatio, could carry up to eighty Tearshells, and a full rack of support orbitals.  In this case, the Captain had opted for a full global set of support orbitals, what amounted to three missile/laser space stations set up to cover the whole of a planet, and the minimal rack of forty Tearshells.  He treated the individual Tears as independent action groups, without local ground support, and used the additional orbital firepower to make sure pirates did not escape by dodging to the offside of the planet, and going exoatmospheric.  In the TNSN, this was considered an aggressive hang forward load out.  When it worked, it was awesome, when it failed, it got men and machines slammed, and even slaughtered.

"That's his call sign, sir." First Liason Elise Connor explained, pretending to check the forward screen that curved across the front wall of the Link Station along with her other 'Voices'.  That same voice might be having an effect on the admiral so he turned about, and asked the Captain a seemingly calm question as there was no heat in his voice.

"Do I look dumb, Captain?"  Captain Alex Mayfair winced, his overtly bushy eyebrows, jutting up.  He spared a baleful look at the back of young Connor.
"No, sir."
"Then why, Captain is your prima lecturing me on what any third grader knows back in teh asteroid mines?"
"I would say, nerves, Admiral." The Captain replied, stiffly.  He waited until the Admiral nodded.
"Probably." He turned to the prima.  "Now you understand why we don't let women in combat.  I know its your job to explicate the obvious so that we don't get half baked status on the away teams.  Just as I know what a call sign is."
"Um, thank you, sir."

"Now..."
"He's been that way from the state.

"....err, from when we picked him up on Copernicus is Wrong."
"CW was blased by the Radauts, right?" The admiral's eyes grew distant which meant he was accessing data from his contact lens interface with his personal net, or pernet, a wearable computer holding millions of petabytes of data.  Such a device was limited to High Command since when the Singularity did not happen, and computer power tapered off as did every other tech advance in history, without yielding a manyfold increase in human reasoning, which would then yield another such increase, and on and on until trillion point IQ's were commonplace, and all men were, as the ancient temptation had it, as gods.

Reminded of the admiral's personal power, let alone his rank and authority, Elise Connor swallowed hard.
"Yes sir, but he was the only survivor."
"Which is unusual."
"Not totally so, but his not having radiation damage is..."
"What do these signs mean, this lack of rising and falling yellow..." The admiral's voice faded away.  He wondered who would talk next.
"It is remarkable, Admiral." The Captain stepped into the converstation with ease. He had just time to see a raised eyebrow, before he plunged ahead.
"Consider the Asatru warriors, their yellow is almost as calm, but their red is spiking like crazy over a very high baseline as they work their way up to the berserkergang.  Even a Christer Battle Saint, has more yellow, by a thin margin, along with the spikes of blue of unalloyed joy, and the deep black of determination.  Here, yellow and red are almost flat."
"What's it mean, Captain?"
"Immortal is bored, Admiral, sir. This is his one hundred ninety-fourth missiondrop."
"Those who survive can get out at twenty missions, and are forced out at forty.  How is he...??"
"He had a court martial after he refused to leave.  At the end, he asks the judge what would be the punishment for killing the judge in the majesty of his chambers."
The judge told him him that assignment to the notoriously deadly Tearshells would be the punishment for that, and Immortal just smiled right at the judge who retired to his chambers, and left the starship thirty minutes later, never to return."
"He...threatened a sitting officer...?" The Admiral stared in shock. "Ok, get me this man, and I'll talk to him."

First Liason Elise Connor paged call sign 'Immortal'.
"Hey dude, I got an admiral on an inspection tour, he'd like to talk to you." The request was plain, and there was a long moment when nothing but breathing was heard and then a Southern drawl came back.
"Sure, put the admiral on, Elise. It will give me something to do other than play solitaire." The sheer casualness of the male voice echoed around the Overwatch Link room where the others sat.
"How did you get so many missions?"
"Friends in low places, Admiral.  A clerk here, a logistics master there, after a while, you start collecting friends, and everyone does each other favors, and they have my back."
"Corruption."
"Oil. Grease. Admiral, you're an admirable, ....heh, people.  Really you guys are, but you're also kind of aspie."
"You're one of us too, y'know." Admiral Hooper said leaning back, getting into the swing of things with this unusually cool customer who even now was hanging over a twenty-three thousand mile drop into enemy fire with a one in four chance of survival that he could be launched into with ten seconds notice, or in an emergency with no notice at all.
"No sir. I'm not." There was a long pause. "I mean I'm human like you guys, not some cyborg freak on a god trip like the Radauts, but still I'm not one of you."
The admiral pulled a puzzled face, and make a throat-cutting gesture than had been recognized for centuries as 'zero the sound'.
First Liason Elise Connors shrugged.
"Sir, its what we found when we picked him up.  He claimed to be a dimension traveller who died, and went to other universes, and that this was his ninth universe."
"PTSD from CW getting blased over?" The admiral wondered.
"Thats what we thought, but our shippschy found little signs of PTSD except for an unusual aversion to fur.  He's angry as he'd tell you, but only because the Radauts killed everyone on that planet."
"So not being able to bear the pain, he constructed a fictional background that he believes in obsessively."
"Yes, sir." Said Elise.  The Admiral frowned, and studied his fingernails until the Captain spoke up.
"It also makes him my best soldier.  He approaches the state of No Mind attained by our best Japanese soldiers, but he has a flexibility of mind that they lack."
"Hunh. Any other thoughts?"
"Well..." Elise blushed, and closed her mouth.
"Speak." The Admiral commanded.
"Well....the Asatru soldiers and sailors think he's Thor, or the avatar of Thor, come to once again be Protector of Humanity."  She paused, and took a deep breath.  "The Christer's think he's a Battle Saint or an Angel.  The Catholics are more for Saint, and the Baptists are more for Angel."
"I see." The Admiral said darkly even as the female voice of the ship sounded.  "Maximum success proabability launch window now open. Closing in forty-nine seconds. Forty-eight, Forty......

The problem with modern war was that each soldier needed to be a tank, or a colonel.  In Harry Watkin's case he was a colonel, but no one called him sir, instead he was Ol'Harry.

Out at the end of Poacher's Lane, under the twin moons of Tabasco, known for its volcanoes, and Velvet, known for its smotheringly soft high clouds that hid all, a man sat up. All across the planet of Erevon, gravity sensors went hysterical.  But no one paid any attention to them.

People were busy planting crops, and planting trees.  The older the farm, the more it was an orchard as orchards were easier than farms, and while the residents of Erevon would have admired much about the Victorians and the Neo-Vicks, and the New Traditionalists Resurgents, they did not see that working oneself to death brought one any closer to God.  Thus Landing City was surrounded by a belt of orchard's fifty miles  which ran right over the top of Dismay Mountain, and kept on going.  Eventually it grew splotchy

"Chars Michman." Charles Alexander Michelin.  The deep, sonorous voice bore down on me, entered my mind, invaded my soul, and I found myself wanting to obey. Whispers ran in on me from the shadows in the dark places beyond the gaslight lantern hung on a bronze pole. I could not flee from them for I was bound wrist and ankle to a table flipped on its side. They spoke of whatever I desired, both unending peace, paradise and oblivion all at once, which makes no sense, but then this was not logic they practised, nor argument, but brute persuasion.  I was weak, and they would win, and I should give up now.

"Yes." I agreed.  And the voices exulted even as they promised me all I had wished.  And the owner of the voice leaned forward when I made as if to speak, but could not.
"Tell me of the woman, the one that carries the godling in her belly.  Already the life in him reaches out into the outer world. Give the fetus to me, and I shall give you the world." And thus spoke the priest of Moloch Childburner to me, and his name was Aranokis.

Crunch.I spat into his piggish mouth, open, gaping desirous of the sweets of my hidden secret, of breaking open my skull, to eat my brain. The greater part of the poison in the broken tooth flooded into his throat, and instantly the knowing fled to his brain.

I had killed him.  And so without another word, just bulging eyes, he drew and lashed at me with his dagger, and cut my belly open, and then stabbed and stabbed, and then stricken, he fell.  And I slumped, undone, but victorious for the godling fetus, only two months old now, would be born into this world, and the Powers of the Dark would flee before him.

The world grew dark around me, and I let it for I had taken in less poison, but enough, and such poison that death by stabbing was an easier way to go.  And so I died, but as I passed near the River Styx, I heard a voice calling, and turned back without suprise.
The Boatman gave me a rueful smile under his hooded cloak for he had seen me before.

And then I awoke to hear a voice, not of a god, but of a man.

This is third person, unlike the first bit which was first.

"Leave him girls. He's just a man, not a soldier." Charles Michelin opened his eyes to the voice of not-a-man, but a mannish women, clad in tan khaki uniform, with a smart overcoat, and some braid and ribbons on her vest pocket and shoulder epaulets of dark velour.  Her face was turned from him, and was not wholly unattractive, but the short bob haircut accentuated all the worst features of her face.

She was crouched in the shade of a large concrete block that had been pitted by small holes and then sliced firmly through, leaving black glass, and obsidian pebbled on the smooth cut side, and drooled down on the edges of the cut.  At her feet were two pretty young things, both blonde, and cute, one green-eyed, and the other blue-eyed, and they looked at him with hope from under their golden ringlets.

"Hold up, there, missy." He reached out a left arm, sitting up, and the soldier woman reached out, grabbed his arm in a professionally taught capture and twist designed to immopilize him with leverage and pain.  His arm barely twitched under the assault, and he used her weight as a countermass to yank himself to his crouched feet for if these other three wanted to hide behind the concrete block, that was good reason for him to do so as well.

Here in this new universe, Charles had no idea of what was going on.  For all he knew, the uniformed woman might be a spy for Aliens, or a vampiress not allergic to the sun, or...
"Sergeant Jessamine-Wilmington of the Jubilee Resistance. Let go of my arm."  Charles blinked, look down, and let go of the woman's arm in surprise.

"How'd you get here? You're a deserter, and I should shoot you..." She reached for her sidearm, and Charles grabbed a rock off the ground next to him, and shoved it right up into her face, and almost touching her left eye.

"Hold up, there, soldier." He improvised rapidly. "I'm on a secret mission. Advanced tech. Stealth." He did not see disbelief in any of their eyes which suggested that this building in the Multiverse, this row home along the Road of Forever, had technology, and more advanced than the gaslit tech of the last universe.  Seeing the sergeant back down, he retracted his jagged stone from her face.  She twitched for her pistol, and his rock twitched in reply, so she gave up.  So he added. "Stealth suit. But it burnt out."

This won him adoration from the two cuties, whose eyes shone, and a grudging respect from the sergeant.
"So you're an officer. What are your orders, sir?"  Charles stifled a curse.  Now he was responsible for three lives as well as his own quasi immortal one.  How did he keep getting in these situations?

Read an interesting article on The Imaginative Conservative website about how Tolkien and others dealt with creating interesting good in their stories.  Tolkien put it in specific details in communities....like the taste of strawberries in the Shire springtime....was the idea.

I'd also considered the idea of being more 'meet neat characters' in MV novels.  In some stories, one of the primary elements is the meeting of friends which is not something I do so well in my writing.

Also, have been considering that if I know my world better, like Holly Lisle  says, that I can write my story better.  Similarly, I need better villains as story drivers??.

==================================================================================

"Brief me on the tactical situation, Sergeant." He spoke, his voice sounding controlled and professional even to him.  The two blondies gave him grateful smiles, and even the  sarge unbent a little.

"Captain Montgomery sent me and a pair of boppers with four valets to go pick up a half-dozen Unlocked. There were only five, and we lost three on the way, and if I hadn't spent the valets and the boppers to shield our retreat, it would have been all ofus."

Charles recognized self-justifying statements, and fear of failure, and second guessing for he had done his share.  He considered reassuring her, but decided a cold face was more appropos to his goals.

"Any retrievable?"  It had not escaped his attention that the sergeant spoke of boppers and valets as things, and that five minus three was two, and there were two girls of dating age right here, so that probably meant they were Unlocked, whatever that meant.  He shifted his knees, and spatters of light out of the corner of his right eye over the concrete block had him diving down even as the block and the ground near it grew new pencil thick holes that steamed and smelt of hot summer days and overheated concrete.

"Keep low, sir. The Bill Collectors, they do love to, ah, collect an officer."
"Thanks, sarge, I'llkeep that in mind." Charles replied dryly to the taunting humor and well meant advice of the sergeant.

"I...maybe. But right now, we've got a spike of Bill Collector's that punched a hole in  Jubille lines, and I can't get across it, and I can't go behind it because the Colonel in charge of this sector, he will be massing forces to repel the robots."

Robots! A clue, a veritable clue. Charles exulted inside while struggling to keep his face plain and solemn.

"Can we go under? I mean in the sewers." Charles knew he was taking a risk.  What if everyone in this universe used composting toilets, and tossed the biomass on their gardens back of th ehouse?

The sarge blinked and then grinned.

"We could, and with your permission, sir, let's head out.  Keep low."

I hadn't heard of that website before.  I'll have to check it out.

I definitely give my vote for more "meet neat characters", especially ones that can be befriended.  You have run so many wonderful worlds for me over the years, but the best ones by far included neat characters rather than just settings.  For example, in the Star Wars/Lovecraft world, would you believe that my thoughts return most often to five young cubs?  And in my awesome current world, would you believe how much more the setting sparkles from folks such as the ancient Widow Hennsta?  "Welladay", indeed...  :D

Charles ran behind the trio, helping to bring the two cuties back to their feet when they stumbled.  Sergeant Jessamine hisses at them, and then fell herself three seconds later as they slipped from the open street into a narrow alley.  Without a word, and biting his tongue against the laughter, Charles helped the Sergeant back to her feet.  She jerked her arm back out of his grasp, growling, and stomped on forward with battle broken concrete chunks underneath her flat soled light boots.

He bit his lip again, this time in controlled irritation.  Her demeanor was unprofessional at the least. And if they were not in danger of being immediately killed by something of a robot army named 'Bill Collectors' he would have had it out with her right then and there.  They moved on, down the alley, took a left turn, and came to a sewer drain barely visible under an overlayment of rock and dust.

The sergeant clicked off a net hologram on the sleeve of her coat, and pointed at the circular metal cover.  Grumbling to himself that as an officer he shouldn't have to dirty his hands, but he realized the facts as he lifted the metal disc up from the hole.  None of the other three, no normal woman, that is, could have lifted the mass.  That much weight was beyond them just as lifting a jeep was beyond him.

The sergeant led the way, climbing down a ladder into the dark.  A splash and a call at the bottom sent Greeneyes down, followed by Blueeyes, and lastly himself.  The tunnel was not the concrete he expected but white pvc pipe in a huge bore.  He wondered how much oil they had, and considrered that this might not have happened.  If they had an oil shock like his Prime Earth, or some other inflation, then it probably   would not have happened.

Running down the drain, head bent, he reflected that money gets used for something.  The same monies that in his timeline fled to the Mideast to pay for overpriced gasoline could have been used in this world to build robots.  Whether a robot army was worse than terrorists was a question he was not prepared to answer.

The Sergeant jabbed up with a finger, but waited for him to agree, fearing to take responsibility for her choices.  He chose, and went up, pushed aside the metal disc, and breathing in once, hard, shoved his head out and above.  Quickly he swivelled his head taking in a pile of cardboard boxes, filled with pink sheets, a garbage can, a rat sitting atop the can, and two long brick walls alongside an alley.  He popped up, looked about again, and then pointed at Blue Eyes who  he helped up.  He waved off the Sergeant, and helped Green Eyes next. Each smiled very prettily at him, and he felt his heart stutter.  Then he helped up the Sergeant who sneered at him.

By this time he was a bit breathy, indeed, they all were, so he ordered a rest break.  The whine of richocheting hypervelocity weapons, the thunder of lasers shouted from beyond their small haven, on each side of them.

"Are we in the clear, Sergeant?"

"Not sure, sir."

A mass, ten feet tall, cylindrical, with eight tiny spider legs about the base of the rod shape held it one foot from the ground.  Other weapons were being pulled out, and fitted to its arm as its weapons were pulled out of protected storage.

"You are in possession of two Free Breeding Females.  The Human Genome is patented, and patent fraud will not be tolerated."

Charles motioned for them to get back into the tunnel even as he squatted down to face the robot. A quick reach, and out of his jacket came a slim rectangular box of soft, black metal.  This he tossed, not at the robot for it might well have defenses, but at the boxes of pink slips.  The eruption of flame set off the slips into a towering rage of flame and smoke that blocked the robots way forward.

Charles dropped into the sewer crying 'Run!'

The quartet ran on past the next ladder, and the next,  and was fixing to do so for the third, when Charles called a stop.  The three females wanted to run on, until Charles asked the Sergeant just how wide was the human controlled corridor?

Charles went up first, again, to spot a half ten of soldiers crouching looking at him over the sights of their battle rifles.  Then they smiled and eased up, but Charles looked past them.  A devouring wall of flame was rushing their way.

"Sorry." Charles said and dropped, without using the ladder back down into the sewer.
"Run!!" He screamed with full panic in his voice, and a wildly waved arm to encourage them.  As they went, he scrambled up, lunged forward, and the ground bucked under his feet.  And then the roof came in, and a piece of that roof shattered his skull.  And suddenly he was no longer there, but elsewhen.

I was out of the bar, with its stink of sweat, and overlain layers of perfume, and cheap booze, and for a moment all I could do was express my gratitude to Heaven, until I saw the gaping chasm, formed of blocks of black rock, decorated by cedar sprung from the cliff below me that stretched all the way down to the white spray of wave tops disintegrating upon wet rocks.  Panicked, I flipped back, away from the death staring me in the face.

And I rolled over something flexible but firm, and for a long moment, I wondered what it could be, until it wriggled all up and down its whole length, and I knew.

Snake.

I was laying on a snake, and it undoubtedly was angry at me.  Which meant as soon as I got up, it would bite me.  Then I would die from poison.

I looked about for distraction, for something to aid me, and saw a mountain covered in bushes and interspersed with trees, dotted by cows on the steep face of the dark rocks, all going up into the puffy, white clouds.  It distracted me because it boggled the mind.  I knew of no place on Earth that I had been like this, and I certainly don't have the type of friends with the inclination or the wealth to drug me, toss me on their Lear Jet, and drop me off somewhere.  My friends, if they were playing a practical joke put a cup of water on the doorframe above a door, or pushed the car around the corner of the store so I spent half an hour looking for it in the parking lot of Malley's Grocers (a local chain to which I had done some accounting  work as a consultant when they were looking for an embezzler and needed an outside man. The fact that I was a student weighed against me, but my being bigger than most men helped as they were afraid of some violence.  As it turned out, the embezzler went as quiet as a lamb.)

And then there was some more wriggling, and the large, green snake, the great grandpappy of all garter snakes pulled itself out from underneath me, gave me a very snakish glare, and slithered away.  I collapsed laughing uncontrollably for almost a minute, and then spent, I just lay there, realizing that yes, indeed, I was going to live.

Carefully, I got to my feet, and I began to decide my direction by process of elimination.  I did not want to go down to the choppy sea, nor did I want to go wandering mountaintops in fog.  The presence of cows suggested a cowherd, and that suggested a path, and a herdsman or cowboy or vaquero.  Someone.

Besides, I felt as if I had lost something off that way which truly was the oddest feeling on an already odd nigh....err, day.  So I began picking my way through the stiff brush with the little thorns, and quickly decided to avoid them as much as I could because they had a decided tendency to push you back, outward, away from the slope, and into a back flip and dive which I doubt any judges would reward with a perfect ten as I'd be screaming the whole way down.  Ok, probably not.  I'd be concentrating on how to survive the probably unsurvivable, but still, no ten.

In between the bushes, bending over to cling to the boxy rocks, or to catch at a nag of rock with a hooked finger, and I began to go up.  A little way later, and I looked down, but not all the way down.  I had found another space for rest, a little bobble out from the face with a flat bit of grass, and fifty feet below me was the other.  There was no way my friends would have brought me here, and I'm just not important enough for the CIA or the FSB to do something insane like this, unless, well, it could be identity theft.  Maybe the CIA thought I was some super tough spy because said spy had stolen my identity.

It was plausible, if you were drunk and low on sleep which I wasn't.  I gave up in disgust, and got back to climbing after my short break.  Another break, at a less congenial spot, had me just clinging to a wall, and waiting.  And then I came to my first cow, and wonder of wonders, it moved its head, and a bell chimed forth.

My unspoken worry had been that these cows were wild.

"Bessie. You wouldn't know where to go home would you?"
And at the word 'home' it began to slowly amble along the steep slop, carefully plodding on, choosing each step, never fast, but never stopping either like a steamroller in high gear.  And so I found myself at the tail end of a northbound (who knew?) cow like in the old joke.

Half an hour later, a grizzled old man emerged from a hut on the side of the mountain, and began shaking his staff, and yelling at me.  I just grinned to see him, and I think my happiness eventually penetrated his ire, and he realized I was not some vandal or troublemaker, but a man in need of help.  So he came over to me, spoke in some foreign language, and fingered my battered suit with wonder, and then took me into his one room hut on the side of the slope.

I was so glad to sit on his tiny chair that I almost did not notice the hot tea he pressed into my hand.  It was half tea, half milk, and a couple teaspoons of honey, and it revived me greatly so that I raised my weary head, and gave him a grateful smile.

"Thank you, friend."
"Tiya, jotunn." He replied, nodding.  He pointed up, and then made a symbol for walking down, and pointed at me.  I shook my head no, which confused him, but then he shrugged.

His room was simple and plain.  Tree trunks tied together formed the walls, and dried and pressed brush the low ceiling.  A hammock of leather, probably from one of Bessie's kin, hung in one corner, and at the most outside edge leaning the furthest over the gulf was a small hole.  Considering there was no other sign of a toilet I was willing to be that that was garbage disposal and toilet all in one.

"Jotunn, vatak." He said, and went to the doorway which he left open for light, although he had a panel that could be tied up to serve as a gate.  I went to follow him, and he held up a forbidding hand.

"Vatak."  Okay, that sounds like it meant 'stay'. i resisted the urge to woof like a dog, and settled back into the tiny chair.  He looked satisifed, and then led his cows back out on the cliff.  I waited there, drank, and after a bit tested out the hole.  It worked admirably, and there was a pile of large leaves nearby that got some use as well.  When he came back, he wrinkled his nose, and then showed me some leaves hanging on the wall.

He crumpled up one and smeared it on his hands, and it left a fresh, piney scent in the air, and so I did as he did, and felt my skin prickle, and the small cuts on my hands sting.  It must have some cleaning property, some thing that protected one from bacteria I thought, noting the oval shape, and plump structure of the near hand-sized 'cleaning leaves' as I called them.  The larger other leaves I called 'washtowel leaves' at least in my mind.

He frowned at me, and for a second I thought I had displeased him, but as he looked up at me, and I bent my head under his low ceiling, I saw he was trying to figure me out.  He took off his fez like hat, made of leather, once dyed yellow, but now faded, and rubbed the bald spot in the midst of his frizzy, white hair.

His clear, blue eyes, and Roman nose (once broken) were all set on a spare frame barely five feet tall, if that.  His hands were well calloused and marked with scars in  herdfulls.  His face was leathered and tanned from living in the outdoors, and he carried not a spare bit of fat on his body.

He had on a tunic, and a short cape, short pants and shoes with a pointed end to them which rose high enough to be really low boots.  And before, when he left, I had see a roll of line, attached to a weight, on his back belt, along with a long knife.

He pointed at me.
"Jotunn."
At himself.
"Timvaik."  Now Timvaik could be his name, his clan name, the mountain's name, a job like cowdoy or herdsman, or simply human.  So I pointed out at the cows.
"Yana."
And the mountain.
"Doranei."
Well, that eliminated some things.  I kept on with the items of his house, and found the language simple, at least compared to English, and sweetly pretty.  It was a melodious tongue for which I was glad.

And after a time, he took himself out of the hut, and guestured me to follow, and so we came around the hut, and above it, and back down on the far side of the hut where there was a stone oven.  Next to it was a pile of dried wood.

No match, or cigarette lighter was made manifest, instead a crude bow, and arrow, and planted in front of me.  Meanwhile, he began to stack bits of leaves and small branches from a covered staved bucket, and then building in a pyramid above it a base for a campfire on the stone oven.  Suddenly, I realized that there was a reason he had put the bow in front of me.  I was to bring the flame.
Now, even as I grabbed it up, and tried to move the bow back and forth, know that I have rarely started fires except with the aid of lots of firestarter fluid, charcoal, and a dozen matches.  Getting no where, I looked back in memory, and finding a clue, looped the bow line around the arrow that pointed down into the wood base.  Then I began whirring it back and forth, building up some speed in each turn.
But when I slowed down the smoke went away.  So I focused on maintaining speed, and the smoke kept on, but never quite caught.  So I did it faster, and was rewarded with more smoke trickling up into my face.  But still no flame.
A shadow was over me, and I looked up, still working, still panting, dripping sweat, and saw the old man staring down at me in a puzzled way.  He reached out, and I shook my head, determined to get this.  So I pushed harder, and there was a flicker.  And then another, and he caught it, and puffed on it, and brought the bit of fire to the tinder on the stove.  And for a long, wearying second, I thought it died out.  But then it leapt up, and we had Fire!
The old man slapped me on my shoulder as I rose to my feet to tower above him.
Jotunn. Giant from the Northern lands, like the Vikings.  I was no expert in Scandinavian lore, knowing that rings and giants and Loki played some roll, along with Ragnarok, and Odin, but little more.  Still, I could see the little old man as of Scandinavian stock behind his wrinkled face and his clear blue eyes.  And so I stood there with my new friend as the fire rose from the tinder, and into the branches, and enjoyed the moment standing there on a flat space two feet square on the side of steep mountain behind a branchwork cabin.
The old man took a heavy stick, and pressed done on the fire, and after a bit of fiddling and squishing, he put the stick aside for later use.  Then he maneuvered with my aid, a stone panel atop the fire, but supported on both sides by hollow bricks w hich sucked in oxygen for the flame under the panel.  This guarded the wooden house from the flame, and the winds which could whip it.  Then he began to toss from another bucket what looked like a white, varied granular mass, that smelled of tang.
And he added from a line that ran around the front of the cabin, well aged slabs of meat.  Soon we were back inside, at his table, feasting on buttermilk biscuits with fresh butter, and a side of well aged steak.  Our only herbs were salt, and pepper (which he was very careful with), and hunger.  Our drink was beer.  It was one of the best meals I've ever had, and even though at the end of it I knew but twenty words, we had much laughter and good conversation.

The next morning, his laughing, well-lined face woke me, and when I sat up on the leathern rug, my woolen blanket (which suggested trade and sheep somewhere and a wider world) crackled under its overburden of frost.  Shivering, I got up, and looked gloomily about as the old man laughed and stomped about with vigor, and gradually by osmosis as I was dull-witted that morning in my sleep fog, he passed the idea. Stomp and laugh to get the blood flowing and the muscles producing heat, stomp and laugh because it was better than crying.

Following him outside, a lumbering bear careful of footstep chasing a nimble moutain goat that taunted with sing-song jokes in his own language.  I replied with flat 'ha-has' which after he realized were not meant as anger, he found delightful.  sneezed out a great a-choo in the breath-steaming morning air.  The snot flew out in a great arc and plunged down the cliff face, probably striking in the froth of the waves way below, but in the fog of the early morning, with sun rising just behind us, turning the higher fog bright white back there near the peak no one could say.

My host found this hilarious until I mimed wiping my nose with my hand, and offering to shake his hand.  After an incredulous look, he found this offering from third grade even funnier.  I guess cable TV did not make it up here.  But in truth, I found it strangely funny as well, and let out some booming laughs that rocked off the cliff faces, for it was not one cliff, but a thousand little cliffs, and caused the cows to be startled.  For they looked up at us from their sleep on the side, and gave forth startled moos.

With that, the old man waved us quiet.  Evidently affrigting the herd was a no-no, or otherwise I would have continued with the jesting.  He  brought me to the front edge of the cabin, which hung over the wild sea.  And  here, with one hand, on the branch work wall, he casually leaned out, and reached around the corner in such a fashion at to make my heart stop for I was quite sure I had seen my last of the aggreeable old man, and I would be left all alone here with the cows to contemplate how I had gone from a cheesy bar on Earth to an island in the sea.

Instead, he came back with a cord, handed it to me, and went back for another, and another.  When he got both of his, he looped one to hold it on a nub of a branch on the brahcwork wall, and then he took the other one, and as smooth and as fast as a steam machine, he whipped and looped in his hand the thin, gray rope.  I tried to follow him with my cord, but if I was a third of his seeed, I was lucky.  And then up over the edge came breakfast, a nice two foot tuna, still flapping on its hook.

He bashed in its skull real quick, and turned to me, saw how I was going and got the second string which he also pulled up, yielding a foot long red fish, and I then finally pulled up eighteen ihes of Yellow Tail.

Building out the outside fire was easy, and soon we had plates of fried fish for breakfast.

"Captain Hollister, execute Phase Two. Take the lookout."  Ray Lewis Hollister double-clicked in affirmative reply to Looking Glass shuttle that was the home of the Magister, and as such continually on the move because dozens of Sipal long-loiter missiles hunted for it.  Take out the Magister, and without his fierce passion and fiery leadership, the Torchthrower mission would be crippled.
Looking down at the dozen pammies, powered armor marines, sheltered in the dry for a decade culvert, he saw through his AR, Augmented Reality, each ones face through the solid opaque helmet.  Each man was biding the time in his own way.  Morton was pretending to himself that his nose itched, which would get the robot to itch his nose for him with a small, biomechanical claw inside the helmet.  It was surprisingly difficult to lie to something that could and did scan your brain to choose your next actions.  Morton claimed this practise at lying made him a better poker player.
The others were praying (four of them), looking dumb (two of them), sucking on a tooth (one), crying (Mitchell's always cried before a fight, but as soon as the plasma cannon's lit up, he was good as gold.) sleeping (two), and the rest were looking at vids.
"Time to earn our munificent pay, and eternal glory." He said softly, and twelve heads locked on to him, which considering that each head had a inchy autocannon fixed on the left side of the head meant he was suddenly the target of twenty guns, each capable of firing a hypersonic bullet in 0.14 seconds that was an inch wide, and loaded with an electro-resistor explosive.

He ignored the creeping feeling, and pointed out towardc the City on the Edge of a Great Deep.
"We need to take the space cable up to orbit.  Because enemy ships may be dragging in goodies for the bad guys.  We take the lookout point just outside the city, and it covers the space cable.  At that moment, we can deny usage of the cable by firing low power charges at anything trying to go up the cable."

"Let's do it."
"Yeah."
"Yay us."
"We stomp em."

If diversity was strength, then they were terribly strong, Ray noted sourly, not letting his displeasure at the individualists of the Scot Free Poets reach his face.  Unlike them, he had no pammie hard hat to hide his face.  But then he was an officer.

So he spun, and flipped, his Jacksonian steamer pistol out, and ready to turn any human into a cloud of expanding steam via the application of significant amounts of laser energy.  Shots of plasma flamed past him, and before the follow ups could lock on, the pammies were up, and around him, as he expected.  The only way to lead these hyper-individualists was with courage, and example, and by love.

More plasma rained in from the look-out, but the pammies armor shrugged it off.  They advanced, being already out in the open, and debate and reconsideration being manifestly too late, although he knew that if he survived this fight he'd hear about it from some of them.

SHaH-RWHOOM!!

Morton screamed, and his armor flipped skyward.  The scream cut off immediately which meant he was either dead, or max pain drugs had kicked in at the decision of the armor, which meant Morton was at best going to be good for nothing for seventy-two hours.  And the near instantaneous treatment enabled gave Morton or any other casualty more of a chance to survive because in trauma as in jet fighters, speed was life.

The pammies crouched, and began bringing up their shoulder shields which was the exact wrong reaction.  A shoulder shield could make light work of a lascannon, but that had been a high plaser, a King of the Battlefield.  Stay out here long enough and it could destroy them all.  It was only luck that Morton had been the only one torched by that last shot.

Hating them, hating himself, the war, and the universe, Ray leapt over the heads of the pammies in front of him.  With his inbuilt cyberware, he could out run an Ethiopian marathoner, outsprint an Olympic sprinter, and bench press nine hundred pounds.  He sailed over the lowered helmet heads of the pammies, shouting derisively and apparently in great good humor.

"Guess I'll take them on myself."  It was unfair. But war was heightened life, and life is not notably fair. They charged after him, and he thought of praying, of hoping that the high plas did not tag him, but if it did, he'd never feel it.  He'd explode into a hot mist and spatter across the charging pammie's heavy chest plates and joint shields behind him.

Another flash of light, another scream, and half-blind he came up on the gunner, and pulled the trigger, stroking it, not that this was needed.  His gun had no kick.  A flash of light, and thunder, and odd shadows about the iron outer shell of the high plass, and a frightened looking man became hot gas and chunks of meat as the heat from his laser flashed the water in the man's body to steam in the space of a second.

And then plasma bolts hammered down the men in the dug out holes that dotted the parking lot of the city overlook.  Some time ago, teenagers had come up here to kiss.  Now men died in spasms of electric fury that had the mercy of being almost painless or purely so.  With such dramatic energies being flung about, human flesh evaporated in a flurry.

And they had the overlook.

"We're here, Magister. Three casualties." Ray said using the neutrino link since a radio would have been wholly useless in the wild EM environment of the powerered armor battlefield.

It was my tenth universe, and I woke to the sound of machine-gun fire.  Bullets whined and rattled down the dusty alleyway, hitting a metal trashcan, making it dance and ring.  My Ringer Railgun was in my hand before I thought to need it.  Hiding in the open doorway, I saw a fearful man sheltering his family with his body,  hiding under a wood, varnished table.  And yet, there was so much dust in the air, kicked up by the roaring turbines of the half-tracks, and by the firefight that I could not see the end of the alley.

Grabbing a stone with my motorcylist gloved hand, I used the other hand to slip off a tightenable metal ring.  This went around the stone.  Now the 'bullet' got dropped into the volume of the railgun firing chamber to float there until he needed the impact of

That day, we scrambled after cows, and I continued my weight loss program.  That night, I wanted, very badly, coffee, soda pop, a sugared Danish, a bag of Nachos Doritoes with that lick off the fingers dust.  Instead, I had another steak, with a sizable layering of fat, which disgusted me, but I forced myself to take a bite not to offend my host.  A few minutes later, it was all gone, and I felt a bit queasy thinking of how I had just ate several square inches of fried fat.  Oh, how I wanted chocolate, and salty cashews!

Now I did not realize that it was a program.  Instead, that night, and the next day, I felt more inclined to take offense, but not from a whimpering laziness, but from a predatory spirit within me.  I did not know where this came from, but when a cow decided to go left when I clearly and unequivocally told it to go right, I punched it in the ear.  It bawled its outrage at me, but turned away from my ferocious gaze as if affrighted.

That night was fish with a huge heaping on top of some sour red vegetable that had pickled in a pot for long with black pepper to give it a kick.  That 'dorzoq' was barely edible, but I was hungry, and so I ate at least half of my plate.  This caused my host to giggle, and to get out another pot, which he cracked open.  The thing was smaller, and lovingly tied shut, and draped with dust.  And the smell was rank enough to drive me out of the shack for fresh air.  He slurped, and gave every sign of strongly looking forward to this 'treat'.  But since I could not even eat a full plate of dorzoq, I'd be spared that treasure of stink, he informed me with some little pleasure.

"Vie build you up.  Jotunn. Make you strong again."  He was Vie, and despite my protests at his name-giving, I was Jotunn.  He made it clear to me, that since this was a new land,  that I had a new name.  It did seem to ground me in my new reality, so I did not object too much.  Besides, I found Vie to be delightful.

The next day, my pants were loose.  On the sixth day, I pulled my belt in another notch.  Now I ate my fat, and my meat without halt, although dorzoq, and the pungent 'trade cheese' defeated me.  Home cheese, made from the local herd was mild, and white, and very tasty.
That day, except for turning out the cows, and milking them, we rested.  And at first, I hated it, the enforced laying down on the bed in the room with the sunlight and the flying birds, and other things of interest outside.  But then I drifted painlessly into a refreshing sleep.

Hours later, by the sun, I was awakened by lunch which was the meal for this enforced day of rest.  Sitting out, eating, realizing that the afternoon held just more of the same was most delightful.  And then Vie began to speak of the creationn of the world, and all the islands, and the mainland, and the lands over the sea.

"And so the Source, who commands us to Justice, for He is Justice, and thus that which is not Justice offends him, gave to the Four Lords the power to divide the land among the nations..."  Somewhere around then, dozed off by the fire.  And that is how we spent our day of rest.

And on the next day, I found myself greatly strengthened, and with a keener interest in all the doings of the herd, and the shape of the land.  We picked a certain dagger leafed plant from between rocks because such was the chief part of dorzoq, and also a nausea inducing plant some cows would eat despite it causing unpleasant rumblings in the tummy.

It was the next day, when the old man began packing, and told me to gather my stuff too.  It seemed we were going to a meeting further inland.

While gathering brush needed by the cows for the duration away from Vie's mountainside cabin, Jotunn came upon a cow that had by steps and leaps gotten itself up on a three foot long, three inch deep cliff jutment, which would not be so bad, but as far as he and the now trembling cow could see there was no way back.  He gave the young heifer some reassurance with his tones, and then scrambled and leapt alongside a precipice that would have had him vomiting in terror two weeks ago.

His pot belly was gone, his diffidence faded, and the continual stair-climbing as it were day in and day out had turned his legs and arms into stringy masses of wire.  He rather thought that if he met that professor again, he would simply have said 'no' to his ridiculous assignment, and dared the man to do his worst.  But he was no longer an accountant taking a sociology class, or an awkward, and a bit nerdy guy asking stupid questions designed to humiliate him of shallow girls.  Instead, he was Vie's friend, an inhabitnat of the cliff farm, and the protector of the cows.

So he came upon Vie who was guiding a half-dozen up to near the cabin, where bundles of food were tied to the cliff face.  This would help keep them from wandering, and a bit of the shredded leaf from which one made dorzoq would be low enough to keep their stomachs sound, but high enough to cut off milk profuction so that the cows would not begin bawling in pain come milking time.

Quickly spilling the data, Jotunn watched Vie's face turn grave.  Once the half-dozen were struly settled, he took up a coil of rope, a hammer, and set off before Jotunn with a pained face, and slumped shoulders.  This worried Jotunn more and more as he tramped along behind the old man.

Vie being intimately familiar with the landscape was there before the so-called Jotunn, and so he saw that the old man had his knife out, but behind his back, and was sweet-talking the shivering cow as he approached.  In his left hand was a loop of rope, which tied on the far end to a heavy rock about four times man size.

Jotunn wanted to scream, but stifling his voice, he choked out a cry.

"What are  you doing?"
"The needful lad."
"But..."
Vie canted his face back toward Jotunn as far as he dared being on an unusually treacherous slope even for him.
"Its a mercy. Shall I leave this heifer out here until its legs fail of exhaustion and it fall to burst upon the rocks below, in fear?"
Not said was that this would be a great waste, but Jotunn could see how mercy and economics combined.  He was an accountant after all.
For a long second, he and the old man  held each other's eyes, and Jotunn searched his mind for what he knew.  The space was too spare to lead the cow backwards, so it had in its foolishness condemned itself.  Jotunn cast his mind out further. Hanggliders. Ridiculous. Balloons. Just so. Pulleys, not so bad, but there were  neither wheels nor enough rope.
He looked up, judged things with a quick eye.
"Vie, wait. Would it be possible to hook that rope from the rock thirty feet upwards of you...?"
"My father tried such, Jotunn. He could not hold on to the cow, not at his end, but the rope, which was a mite longer in those days was not able to be tied tight..."
Jotunn blinked.  And then he giggled as a vision came to him.
He began stripping, and almost fell to his death as he wobbled on one leg.
"Have..."
"We put the cow's front legs in my pants legs...twine the tail in the rope, and hope that Levi Strauss makes good jeans."
"You'd...well okay."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:21, Wed 22 Oct 2014.

Even with the pair of jeans, and Jotunn's legs raising goosebumps in the chill morning air, the rope was not quite long enough.  Vie solved this by soaking it in a bucket to help it stretch.  Wondering if such a trick would make the natural fiber rope more likely to break, Jotunn climbed up, an hour later, rope in a loop over his shoulder, cautious, ever so, just now realizing how Levi Strauss had made him stronger.  Each little bump and scrape on his pale knees, and soft skins offered the possibility of a blood scrape which had not been there before when he had been be-jeaned.

And the more care spent on that meant less care on balance which made him uneasy as he slowly clambered up the cliff in his tighty-whities and regular shirt for which he was very grateful as a cold breeze chose just this time to skim over the cliff face and set him shivering.  A moment to pause, to pull strength from within himself, and he pushed on.

Reaching the jutting stone, almost  a fishhook for a flying fish the size of a dirigible (and who knew, perhaps there was one such here for Jotunn was beginning to suspect he was no longer in Kansas, or anywhere the writ of the US Post Office or USN ran.  That no matter what hill or mountain he climbed, he would not be finding a friendly voice saying 'We're Americans' and a specwar soldier handing him a Hershey's chocolate bar, and a plastic bottle of water.  Not unless they too fell down a rabbit hole.

Eyeing the fishhook stone, Jotunn tested it with a few kicks preceded by a shove or two.  It seemed sound.  Shrugging, he crawled out on his belly, ignoring the churning waves far below, and dragged off his chest the first loop of the wet rope.  It went around the end of the 'hook' and slid down to snug against thicker rock.  Backing up, he unroped, and slid the couple dozen loops over the side with a 'Tallyho!' which earned him a grunt, and then a 'Gots it.'

Vie's part was the more difficult and as he was much more sound on his feet than Jotunn, and smaller to boot, after he arranged the rope to loop in the pants to his satisfaction, he began to climb to the shaking heifer who immediately let all about the cliff know that she was not having anything to do with that strange contraption.  Sympathetic bellows from the rest of the herd just encouraged her in her distressed defiance.

Vie tried again, this time holding the offending jeans behind his back, but the heifer was not having any of such a simplistic trick.  No, it wanted to be saved, but it had to be done according to its specifications, and Levi Strauss had nothing to do with this cow, no sir.

Vie backed off, and decided to give the cow a few minutes for the beasts were not of great mind (although Jotunn thought it likely these cliff dwellers were more swift than the residents of the contented pastures back home who were bred for maximum beef and placidity; these cliff dwellers were half to a third of the size of a full-grown American beef cow, and  while they had a similar noble end, an American beefer would have quickly fallen, and become sharkbait.)  So when Vie tried again, he heard rebellious moos and a determined shaking from a near-blind with tiredness cow.

Vie began a long stream of words that Jotunn did not know, but presumed were curse words in the mountain herder's language.
"Vie."

Jotunn caught Vie's attention, and then chunked a small pebble down to land just so on the heifer's skull, right between its eyes.  It looked up, protesting loudly.  Vie left off his cursing, and leapt forward in a move that would have made a young gymnast proud, and lassoed the fear blinded beast.  As soon as it felt the familiar rope, it protested in pro forma fashion, and subsided.  Thus was Vie, with many sweet words, able to huff and puff as he got the front end of the cow into the jeans legs.  Two twisted loops in either side, held by belt loops, and conjoined by thick but short nubs of branch,  made the front end of the cow fast.  A poke with a knife in the rear got its legs up in instinctive reaction, and a loop of the tail went around the rope.

And now the wide-eyed cow was mooing, and all the herd with it until Vie shouted so that the sound rang off the cliff faces, reached to the clouds, and ran far out to sea.

"Shut up!" He bellowed, and shocked, the herd did so.

After that, Vie said in his most plain-spoken, toneless voice asked Jotunn if he were ready to begin lowering.  Jotunn, taking a cue, and still in awe of the rock spattering yell, replied in the affirmative in like manner.  Thus he began to lower the beast down, and within a couple minutes, it was down, and being detached.

The others in the herd sent investigators to make sure it was really all right, and these ministered with motherly lickings as the trembling beast slowly regained its strength.  Meanwhile, Jotunn dissasembled the rude crane, came back down and other than his jeans smelling of cow, and having a great swatch of cow slobber on its left thigh, seemed none the worse for wear.  Shrugging, he put them on, and Vie clapped him on the shoulder with a relieved grin that held much approval.

"You a crazy giant. Make good herder. Yes."  And his thoughts seemed to go elsewhere and were there for much of the rest of the day even as Jotunn got out a few rocks and made the passage up impassable to avoid another incident like todays.  That night, they went to dinner, and Jotunn, to his surprise ate all his dorzoq.  It seemed a man's tongue could get used to anything he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

A week later, and pulling on his pants and shirt, Jotunn noticed that he had to pull the belt to its maximum intake, and that his shirt was tight around his biceps.  His diet of red meat, fat, and fermented vegetables might have horrified his fourth grade Health teacher with his government approved Food Pyramid, but it seemed to agree with Jotunn's body.

He felt stronger, more alert, and less prone to emotional collapse into depression, although being so far from home was hard.  But then his world of going to college, and paying a massive debt had not been that inspiring.  He supposed if he was given the chance, he would go back, but the fascination of what he was beginning to suspect was a new world was growing on him.

"You take herd for today." Vie announced, and avoided looking at Jotunn who was left gaping.  Realizing that Vie did not want to talk about it, and he had never talked when he did not want too, Jotunn shrugged, and agreed.  Still not looking at him, Vie left after breakfast, which was steak with gull eggs, spiced with fragrant little chips of pepperweed.  The old man did stop twice on the way out, to give some final bit of advice, which Jotunn already knew, and Vie should have known was known, about herd-tending.

And then Jotunn was alone with the cows.  And he realized that he had thought he knew what he was about, but the herd quickly realized their master was not here, and set out for far horizons.  It took until noon to bring them back to their usual pasture cliffs, and by then Jotunn was exhausted with effort and worry.  But so too the cows were tired of their game, and had settled down, or so it seemed.

But then he realized two were missing, and he scrambled up from his lunch, and nearly fell off the cliff face into the foaming water below.  Dragging himself back from the edge, his legs wobbly with exhaustion and fear, he considered letting out a great bellow like
Vie had done, but he doubted that he could manage the mastery that made such offensiveness so effective.

Instead, caution first, he began to seek out those wandering cows.  Reminded of the parable of the Ninety and Nine, he found  himself praying, which well suited this wild, desolate land.  And he found time to be grateful that he was not a shepherd, for while his cows were not that bright, sheep were legendary when it came to stupidity, and getting themselves caught up in foolish traps.  And so he found the two, one on the toplands, which were rather small, before plunging down to another cliff on the far side, which he had not yet seen.

On this side, the sun was warmer, but the grass was more of unpalatable weeds, and the places for footsteps fewer before a direct plunge to the calmer sea below which was deep blue.  And a narrow channel but fifty yards across at its narrowest point, and on the far side he saw another herd, and a herdsman.  He waved at the man, and after a few tens of seconds, the man waved back.

Heartened by the human contact, even if at a range of two football fields, Jotunn went back looking for the one last cow.  Which he found, but not before another cow went wandering.  And such was his day, so that when Vie came back over the cliff top from the topland, he took one look at Jotunn and sent him to bed.  Vie handled getting the cows back to their sleeping shelves, and finishing off the day.

The next thing Jotunn knew was that iw was morning, and he was dreadfully hungry having missed supper and most of lunch, and sore all over.

"I thought I knew the job." He moaned.  "But..."
"There are a thousand tricks the cow plays. You must learn them all.  But you did well enough.  We travel in two days time, you eat and rest, giant man. In two days, we go to a moot."
No more could Jotunn get, and so he ate, and did the necessary, and went back to sleep even as Vie chivvied the cows out to eat, talking fiercely to them about the hard time they had given to the young master last day, and did they not feel ashamed of themselves for their mischief?  With a smile on his face, Jotunn drifted off to sleep.

Two days hence, a man in a tanned leather jacket knocked on the door frame which shook the whole cabin.  He and Vie embraced each other and chatted,  happy as squirrels, until Vie called Jotunn out.

Rising from his breakfast table, Jotunn could see the blonder, but still wrinkled and not quite as old as Vie man stood tall, as if proud of his height, for he outpaced Vie by a hand.  Dismay and disbelief warred on his features as Jotunn came out, and fearing the new man would hate him for being dethroned from the social position of Tallest Man Around, Jotunn gravely shook his hand with the most deep dignity.

But then the man's face crumpled up, and Jotunn felt sure to his dismay that the man would cry.  But then hoots and howls of laughter came from him, and he babbled fast to Vie, so that Jotunn realized how little of the language he actually understood.  He could manage with Vie because the fellow was speaking slow, distinct, and staying away from complex words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Vie listened with a grin as the three stood there on the small flat spot in front of the cabin.  Then he scratched the side of his face with his fingers as he thought, and finally boiled that torrent of words down to one clear gulp.

"He now knows what we've felt for years.  It makes those years funnier."

Jotunn nodded, relieved, not really ready to console a man older than him on not being the tallest around.  With that, Vie darted back in, got several handfuls of beef jerky, and wrapped then in a pack, tied with leather string, and took a horn for a trumpet, and rope, and two large waterskins along with a jar of some particularly potent, but untouched fermentable.

Vie came out, padded the man on the shoulder, and headed up hill.  Jotunn looked about, startled, and the new man made a shooing motion, and Vie turned back, clearly waiting for him from ten feet up hill.  Jotunn realized they were leaving, right now.  Used to American packing, he was bowled over by a minute and change packing, but he told his legs, which were still not sure about this whole standing up thing this morning, to get cracking.  And up hill, and up the cliff face the legs went, striving to keep up with a rapidly moving Vie.

Once they got out on the topland, it was warmer, and here they found the new man's herd for he of course had his own herd and Vie's and one other to look after during this time of moot.  Skirting the herd which listened to Vie's calming words with a sense of suspicion, but no sudden stampedes, or challeges allowed them to get to the far side of the narrow two cliff, at least, sided island.  It was like a textbook standing on its open side, above a desk, with the desk the sea, and the front and back of the book the cliffs, and the binder the topland they traversed.

And here, a narrow passage was revealed, and all along it was eaten grasses, and so Jotunn realized that the new herd must have climbed this. and if an ungainly four legged beast could, then surely a man could?  Looking down at the narrow bits of stone that seemed to go from almost vertical to vertical and out of sight, he was not at all sure of this.  But Vie moved ahead, although with pronounced caution, and Jotunn could not bear to dissapoint the old man.  And so leaning back, one hand to the sunny wall, and two feet going down, probingly, he descended.

Jack Kelso breathed in once in the hallway before the closed metal classroom door, and then deliberately let it out.  Stifflegged in black jeans, uhe marched on down the center aisle of the desks past the annoyance of other young fellows leaning in to bathe in the floral fragrance of Miss OKC.

The young coed centered the classroom with her chubby handmaiden to her right, and all about her, like petals about a flower midst were young men at classroom desks eager to tell a joke, or a tale of high bravery, or contest a point no one cared about in intellectual combat.  Professor Simmons found her a blessing as those desirous of her approval showed their wit and valor by expounding on English lit which meant he had engaged classmen, for once.k

Jack walked past her, not seeing her, for he knew something they  did not.  She had been fawned on all her life, pics of her in the the third grade in the college newspaper had shown a child of unusual grace, self-awareness, and poise.  Now at nineteen, at the peak of her attractiveness, she was like a goddess among men.  And goddesses are not won by worship, but by contempt.

He forced himself to sit down, and open his laptop, and then the bell rang.  Thus making him the only guy in class who did not come early when he could to see the Goddess in her luscious bloede glory.

And the jousting began with one fellow explaining as if it were a grand discovery that each of Tolkien's ages was less golden than the one before.  This prompted an aspie engineer type who did not usually join in to speak of the future as the Golden Age.

"Technology will make

Jeff Matthews drummed his fingers on the pinewood desk in the basement of his parent's second home, right next to the new installed laptop.  He took off his headphones and leaned back, letting the high window in the concrete brick wall highlight his lantern jaw.  Unlike most heroes-in-waiting, Jeff was most content.

The blaring of technorock from upstairs made him smile.  Jerry was in the kitchen, and cooking for his housemates, and sometimes he took a plate down for his landlord, when it was especially good, and the kitchen madman had made too much.  In another hour, Mike, with his Youtuber jazzies would be serenading the rat in the attic, and later that night, when he got off his shift at Taco Bell, Morrison would crank up the Praise and Worship and shake the house.  And their last month's rent had bought him the laptop on his desk.  Jeff loved his neighbour's loud music.

When Jeff's father had said mi casa su casa  he had not expected Jeff to rent out the upper floors of the Windy City boxframe, and use the basement as home, but Jeff, unlike his father, had few desires, and less needs.  A cot, a bath, some blue jeans, t-shirts with witty sayings, and a pair of black cowboy boots along with a T1 internet connection, a sixtyfour inch TV, and a customized, sturdified laptop were all he needed along with a Bible and a toothbrush (toothpaste optional).  Jeff housesat in Chicago, taking classes on-line, while his older brother, Ethan, got the really sweet job of house-sitting in Aspen, but while Jeff could see the fun of Ethan's life, with its constant parade of snow bunnies, he preferred a more minimalist lifestyle.

Ten hours later, and advanced two levels, and slaughtered the lieutenant to the Dread Knight, he tilted back, and popped his back.  The red-checkered flannel hung open over a gray t-shirt that stated 'Democracy is the belief that con men make the best leaders.', and both were slightly rank with flop-sweat from the 'day well spent' as Jeff thought of it.

His legs, he pushed up to the desk, and began to shove back his wheeled chair.  Next to them, a giant glass of sweet tea, as Jerry was an unreconstructed Southron, and a plate of 'proper chicken-fried steak with white gravy as God intended' which was half-eaten, beckoned him.  He would shove the laptop back out of the way, and although cold, Jerry's chicken-fried steak was better than any, even hot, that was sold in Chi-town.  If he did not remember to eat, he sometimes lost weight off his one hundred seventy pound frame, which was rangy with muscle, and prominent hands.

But the boots slipped, and he could see one going loose, and punting the laptop as his leg jerked, and so desperately he yanked it aside, and high.  It grazed the top of the glass, rocked away, and then back, and the sweet tea splashed, sparked and slung all over the keyboard of his almost brand-new except for ten hours of monster-slaying laptop.

He groaned, grabbing his curly, red hair above each year, and bent over, wanting to weep like a little boy who had lost his Christmas toy, but even then his mental stability was coming back as he reminded himself he could put off next month's buying of ski's to please Brother Ethan, and just buy another laptop.  So bent over, and engrossed, he did not see or hear the arc, or the following larger one.  And by the time, he noticed the third larger arc it was too late.

Inside the laptop there was a new chip.  It was 'Scriff Enabled!', and highly proprietary for good reason.  It was larger than any chip in the world, indeed it was more like four chips, but it had a speed that defied this huge size, for in microchips, the length of a chip, at a speed run by an electron is actually an important factor.  Smaller is faster, except for this chip.

The new superchip had dedicated channels from one area of the chip to another neighbourhood, as it were.  These freeways were filled with Scriff, which was a yellowish oil to appearance, but the few scientists in the world that had studied it considered it a fifth state of matter, like solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.  They were wrong.

They thought it had zero resistance to electricity.  Again, they were wrong, but again, it did not matter so much as it was effectively true.  The electricity poured out of the laptop, into the scriff, and the two leapt for the nearest organic bioelectrical structure.

ZZAP!!

Some heroes are born that way, others choose it, and then others are simply tossed into the deep end of the pool.

The air was thick, and nasty, and a continuing, wavering scream jerked him back to consciousness just in time to have a chair broken across his midsection.  Gagging, he opened his eyes to see a petite blonde woman with murder in her eyes advancing toward him with the fragments of the wooden chair legs in her hands.

He lay with legs perched over the metal edge of something on something flat, gummy, and if the bite on his neck was of note, infested.  She advanced, shifting focus to one hand which held a rough spear-pointed leg suited to send Jeff Matthews to the Hereafter.  He spun vertically, gained torque, and plummeted off the unmade cot mattress to the greasy floor, and right through the spindly legs of Miss Murderess.

She collapsed on the cot, and he regained his feet.  Checking his limbs, which still worked, he paused to wonder where he was, but the shrill cry of the baby from the hamper on the far side of the cot arrested his attention.  He made to go examine it, but the lady scrambled up, and held out her improvised weapon with a look of 'do or die.'

It must be her baby, and  well aware of the statement that only morons and death seekers got between a Mama Bear and her  cub, he put his palms up, which incited her to further agression
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:17, Mon 26 Jan 2015.

So he flicked out a hand batting away the vampire weapon, and stepped forward, shoved her with a flat palm so that she landed on her bum on the cot.  He long, rather too skinny legs flew up, and he head with its frazzy bleach blonde flew back and down.  Before she could recover herself, or screech out another threat, Jeff was around the cot, depriving her of her stake, medium rare, and playing goochie-goo games with the baby who paused from his tears, and then went rapidly to giggles.

"An appreciative audience." Jeff murmured, casually handing the square wooden dowel with a sharp-ish end back.  She gulped, and Jeff could feel her studying his impassive face, and wisdom caught up to her, for it is a woman not well acquainted with physics who wants to get into a bloody fight with someone bigger, faster, and stronger.  The baton went down on the cot, and she made to pick up the baby, asserting her ownership.  The handsome little fellow in his carry-on, and loose t-shirt rather dramatically frowned, and began to sprinkle heavy teardrops down his cheeks.

Jeff greeted the mother's retreat, and amazed look with a smile.  Children liked him. And so he turned back to entertain his newest friend, when footsteps outside the door, and then a splintering crash made the door jump.

"Be right back, little fellow." He patted the baby reassuringly which brought out a smile and waving hands, and Jeff found himself drawn to the room's door.  At this time, the mother crouched down with her baby, her terribly thin frame between the baby and the door.  Another kick and it shattered fully, swinging in, half-off its hinges.

And three large men tried to enter in, and to Jeff's utter shock, they began to harmonize.  He put his hand to his head, wondering if he was dreaming, but no, his dreams were never this bizarre.  But then they drew out nightsticks, and that Jeff understood right well.

He grabbed up the chair spike, and flaunted it at them, even as the mother behind him gave a little, despairing shriek.  They sang, and the minor key melody twanged on Jeff's nerves.

"Stop the music!" He hollered.  To his shock, they did.
"Now tell me..." CRACK. A nightstick landed on his shoulder's bicep, sending flares of pain up and down his body.  The one in front, with the heavy brow, and the crude lips, and scarred ear smirked, and raised the stick again, and pointed to the baby.

The mother babbled out denials in a language unknown to Jeff, and even the singing was in a language unknown to him.

Jeff found himself screaming.

"God help me!"  And a fury filled him, a pale pink haze settled over his sight, and snap, th e nightstick fell from numbed fingers, and crack, it went across the jaw line of Weird Ears.  The two behind began to sing more strongly, and Jeff felt the nastiness in the air, and without words, hardly thought turned to God to deal with it.  Stepping forward, he felt the miasma of sickening fade before his clean rage.

Out went the stick, and blocked, but a shin kick followed by a right jab to the nose left that one down.  And as the other came at him from the side, Jeff backpedelled to the wall, and their braced, he lunged, and drove the rounded end of the chair bit into the man's solar plexus.  Their singing had stopped, and Jeff felt a clear guidance.

He really did not want to.  Because it was clear she brought trouble.  However, if He said it, then Jeff really ought to comply.  Wanting to swear, Jeff turned to the mother and babe, and gestured for them to come with him.

Outside in the hall, were others, staring at him, at his bloody fist, and spike.

The mother had left the carry-on hamper behind, which might be useful later, but one had to get thru the short term to survive to consider the long term, and as Jeff heard that weird off-key harmonizing coming from below the floor, or downstairs, he began to fear.  The others in the hall, half-hanging out of their apartment doors all fled back inside.  A few of the bolder left their doors open, and one man signed something with two fingers and a kiss to his hand as if he were giving a blessing.

It did take the edge off that fear as the two of them walked down the creaking tongue and groove hallway at a slow step, ready for anything.  Still, as he got to the top of the old-fashioned paint layered wooden guardrailled and steep stairs just wide enough for one large man or two thin women, he realized he had not  yet heard a word of English.  So he turned to his rescuee', and her baby.  Pausing he made a face at the baby which got it to laughing despite the music in the air that seemed to bring up memories of past failure, of dark days, and of hopes broken with an uncanny ease.
"Hello?" She looked blankly at him from her dark eyes, and her terribly skinny body was a worry.
"Hi," Still nothing. "Spreche sie deutsche?"  Mild interest in her eyes, which was then transferred to the baby.  "Que pasa? Espaniol?  Nyet? Nyekulturny?"  He tried out what little he knew of Spanish, and even Russian, resorting to a Russian insult, that of being 'not cultured' which was a terribly bad thing in that land of great novelists, opera, chess, and poets.
Down the first flight of stairs he went, and upon reaching the landing, he saw another four singing men, with nightsticks out, and cruelty held in check by patience on their leather jacketed faces.  These were not motorcycle jackets, more of Seventies leisure coats down in black leather.  The leader had a bronze badge of some size on his chest.  It held an embossed babe, and a crossed pitchfork.
The leader eyed him, and held out his hands in a parody of the universal symbol for 'let me hold the baby'.  His look seemed to say 'you've given it your best shot, old son, now you see you've lost, and give it up for now.'
Jack shook his head in denial, trying to drive out that soul-crushing song, and the mask cracked and shattered.  Need and fury burst through the leader's face, and he spat out some vile curse that Jack felt as a weight on his arms.
Holding the top of the stairs with his dowel mini-spear, he turned half back to his two charges, and pointed at the window at the landing.  The girl shook her head, and he suddenly bellowed at her.
"Now!! Move it, you stupid bulimic patient." She trembled in the face of his wrath, and he realized she was caught between two fears, and might well get them killed for her lack of courage.  Not that their long-term prospects were looking that good anyways right now.  So he reached into the darkest, not neccessarily the most evil, he realized as he did it, but definitely scarriest part of his soul, and let it out.
"Go." He whispered, and whimpering in terror, she fled to the window and started yanking it up to get out.
The men downstairs, the Singers, they came for him, still singing, but now their music was a laugh, a joke.  Dark nights of pain, of loss had given him a venomous fury...
God grant me the desire of my heart.
And he saw in the men an evil, a vileness, and with the venom came a clean anger, and joined it, and he descended down the stairs to meet the two who were advancing slowly on him.  Yanking the nightstick of the first to the side, he bashed in the nose of the second, then slammed a chopping kick down on the knee of the first after he wheeled to face him.  Both men fell, tumbled really, back down the stairs to crash in a pile at the leader's feet.
Come get some, Jack gestured to the leader, his own face set in a snarl of joyous welcome, but the man merely shook his head, and stepped back, and gestured two more to come on up from deeper in the front lobby.
Suddenly knowing that he could not win in a straight up duel, or could he?, but that such would leave the girl and her baby vulnerable, he sprang back.  Turning he leapt for the window, and dove out of it.
It was lucky, he used a one hand assisted leap because he went out onto a canted down corrugated metal awning, not painted, marked by wave like shapes of rust, and an official looking car with four more of the Singer's standing near it.
Without thinking, he grabbed on the window sill, and was yanked to a halt.  His left shoulder complained dreadfully, and he spared enough time to remind it that it could be dead with the rest of him.
And he heard the bootsteps running up the stairs...

The metal awning rumbled and cried beneath his feet as he scrambled back to the wall, pressing the downright scrawny girl, and her babe up against the wood panelled wall of the apartment building.  And then he hollered out in dismay as a nightstick landed across the fingers still in the window sill.  With a despairing look he fell back, skidding to the edge of the awning, and plunging over.
He knew not where the thought came from....
....half-gainer  , but he flipped and landed solid in his cowboy boots on the postage stamp lawn out front.
Surprised to be active, or alive, the pain of what surely must be broken fingers drumming in his skull, he yelled the first thing that came to mind even as the Singers in the lobby began to rush toward the front door.
"Jump!" He bellered.
She shook her head, but that mere motion was enough to set  her off-balance, and while she tried to keep her feet under her, the result was that she stiff-legged off the awning, like a ballerina on a stage.  As she came down, Jack suddenly realized she could drop the baby, and he could only grab one.
A thought of prayer, and the thin girl in her cheap overdress tucked up in a ball around her baby, evidently ready to die, but to offer the most protectioln for her child from the brutal ground rushing up at her.  And Jack, thanking the Almighty, took one step forward, spread his arms, and caught at her.  Her weight drove  him to his knees, and he felt his tendons in his shoulders strain, but he held on, and once done, the baby giggled at him as if to see...
"Do it again!"
Instead, he put her down, grabbed her arm, and high-tailed it down the street.

In reply to Tadeusz (msg # 117):

The street drove home one fact.  A reddish hue stained the buildings and the landscape.  There was yellow, and green, but no purple, and little blue, as if the color spectrum were shifted down toward the infrared.  Inside, he had put it down to the mere color choices of the builders, and there had been much gray, here it was obvious.  He was not home; somehow he had fallen through into some maniac's version of Oz with the Little Red Brick Road, or asphalt in this case.

And then the commercial district of one and three story buildings ended at a low wall.  A half-dozen out-sized scooters, things a giant toddler might push around awaited in the shade of the wall as he came panting to a halt.  Cowboy boots were  not meant for running, but the heavy men behind him with their doubly red faces seemed to be still getting the worst of it.

He made to look over the wall, and saw a great ravine filled with an unkempt wilderness, but one trail through it to the walled something (city? neighbourhood? estate?) on the far side.  Turning to the gate, he felt a yank on his arm.  The girl was trying to lead him in the opposite direction even as the clot of ten men bore down on them with much shouts of wrath, and promises of repayment for injuries and insult.

For a long second, he weighed the thing in his mind, but decided as she seemed to be a local she might well know what she was about.  He came with her, and they both stepped on one of the engineless scooters.  After another second, she huffed in a meaning clear to any man.  A woman was annoyed at having to do what the man was supposed to do without asking.  Tagging a white button on the metallic handle was followed by her grabbing the handle.  So he grabbed her waist.

A metal rod spiralled up from the handle, and went high overhead to a wire thirty feet up, and hooked on to it.  And with a straining groan the rod began to retract.  A second again, and he realized the groan was in the engine in the handle and not the rod threatening to snap off.  Above him ran a wire tram that bridged the gap, which he had not seen because he did not expect it.

But here, those delayed seconds cost him.  For as they rose, one especially athletic pursuer, leapt to the handle of a parked scooter, and then leapt to the back of the scooter carrying the escapees.  Cringing back from the wide, single-edged blade in the man's hand, Jeff realized he had no choice but to knock the man loose.  So he reached with both hands for the arm with a knife, and caught it with his left.  This left the pursuer free to work a mischief as he used the other hand to throttle Jeff.  Worse, the overburdened engine stopped pulling them up, and instead began to smell of an unsavory smoke.

The pursuers were coming on. There was simply no time to mess around with this knife-wielding, singing (even now) bulky man, or to come up  with an elegant strategy.  He shoved, and Jack fell back, clutching his Seventies era style leather leisure jacket about the shoulders, taking him with Jack in a fall.

 Hoping that he was over the edge of the wall, that he was not about to break his back, or shatter his skull upon a concrete wall, he bet all the marbles, and threw himself into a flip.  Back and over he went, clearing the wall by a handspan, so close that he could tell you the color and detailed design of a spider on the far side of the wall if raw terror had not clenched its harsh hand on his vocal cords.

And then they fell further, the man, now without a knife, looking even more terrified than Jack, as they plunged down the steep face of the ravine edge, going much further down than Jack expected.  And then...branches, leaves, more branches, a bump, a branch thick enough to slow them, and the body shield started to drift away, but Jack renewed his grasp.  He then gave a thought to prayer, which had not even the elegance and form of the most common prayer 'Help!'.  Down they went, now skidding, now crunching, and then an abrupt halt.

Jack lay there for a long  moment.  He did not know the time, nor did he care.  It occurred to him he might be broken inside, and that raised a vague concern, rather less than one might feel at a resteraunt as to whether the waitress is going to bring the water soon.  A sense of obligation touched him, and he mouthed a couple words.

"Oh, thanks."  And with that he was suddenly aware.  The man next to him was shredded, and quite dead.  His leather jacket was now more of a scarf, but since his head was at such an odd angle that Jack felt certain the man could not be alive.  Still he had to be sure, and moving agains tortured muscles and nausea, he pulled up at the man's hair.   Grating noises from his neck, and a blue look under sprayed blood answered jack.  He threw up violently.  This was the first time he had been face to face with death, and even though the man had been trying to kill him, it still affected Jack.

Distastefully, aware that he needed to get  distance from any pursuit, he pushed himself to his feet, which was easy on the steep slope, a mere matter of a gentle shove.  But bloodied, and scraped hands objected, and abused shoulders cried out for 'peace', waving placards up and down his central nervous system.  Instead, the autocrat in the skull ordered march, and so he did, descending deeper into the ravine as there was no possibility he could climb back up now in the shape he was in.

Down the slope into brightly colored weeds, and amongst tripodic leaves of light, green from the slim overhanging branches.
"Leaves of three, let them be."  Getting poison ivy right now, would really be a pill.  But then I'm not on Earth.
"No, definitely not, old son." Ethan, his older brother said, standing there with his snow jacket on, bright reds and purples in bold geometric patterns.  In his right hand were two skis, and a snow bunny clung to his left.  She smiled politely at him.
"Um, Ethan...."
"You took quite a spill there. Hit your head."
"What, what did you say?"  But Ethan seemed to be shouting from a great distance away, and suddenly it came to Jeff that if he was here, then Ethan was there, and he might never see his overly smug older brother again.  It was a piercing stabbing pain that drove him to his knees amongst some yellow flowers.
And then he heard a voice, exasperated, older, with an odd accent, full of music.
"The fool sat down in yellow deadwort.  Did he want to die?"
No.  Jeff tried to say, but the words would not come, and darkness came instead, but it was the darkness of peace, and he let it sweep him away.
Later, he felt a wet, but rough substance across his eyelids, and they fluttered open.
"Medici, medici, he awakes."

The two words, 'medici, medici' which might mean 'medic' or 'doctor' brought him fully awake as they were the first words he recognized from this strange, new place.  And once open, he saw the Sun, a red fury, was further down, and he lay near vertical on the ravine side.  Four men stood about him at what seemed a respectful distance, and more than double arms lengths from each other as a man in a dirty, white coat was lowered down by a rope tied about his waist.

He held in his hand a great, bronze syringe from which dangled a drop of something fetid.  And his eyes gleamed with a mad desire akin to a serial killer, a sexual excitement, and a defiance of Nature and God.  In his face was the True Rebel glimmering out, who even found the physical laws of reality too constricting, let alone the moral laws of reality.

Jeff felt his throat constrict, and he wanted to scream, but his body ached, and the men about him were singing.  It was a dire sound, but one that promised peace, if only he gave up.  It would be all over soon.  Close your eyes, and let it happen.

His eyes did close, and then he forced them open. The whitecoat was there, his dirty breath in Jeff's face, and Jeff grabbed for the syringe, felt himself sliding, and grabbed for the whitecoat.  They careened over a few feet, and Jeff smiled with a wolf snarl.  The next time his feet struck a clod of grass, he convulsed his legs with all his might.

They sailed through one of the singing guards, sending his careening down the ravine to splat with a satisfactory broken melon sound into one of the small trees dotting this place.  Coming back, he strove against the whitecoat, until as the pendulum swung, he suddenly gave in, and yanked the whitecoat's arm over Jeff's shoulder to stab into the singing man on the far side who was trying to catch him.

Terrible screams, as of someone burning in acid, or of someone  having their body torn to pieces by metal hooks greeted Jeff's ears.  And he found himself grinning more wolfishly into the whitecoat's face who reacted by panic, and by trying to squirm to escape. Jeff rode him to the far side, and leapt free to face another singing man waiting for him.  But instead, he let himself slide, imagining he was a snowboarder, and went down twenty feet, and then broke out in a leaping and galloping run along the ravine wall.  But here it had started to get more narrow, and just as he was about sure he he had lost the two, over a bush he came, and splooch.

His left leg went into a thick mud near a pencil thick trickle of water.  The water looked good, oh so good, to his thirsty throat, but as his left leg came up, his shoe stayed down.  And now he was in a pickle, for he could not run across the broken rocks in a sock as fast as his pursuer, nor did he have time to retrieve the shoe and retie it.  The pursuit had been closer than he thought.

But then he spied the greater abundance of small trees here near this water, and without more ado, leapt for the lower branch of the nearest.  He was light and strong.  These fellows were heavy, strong yes, but clod-footed as well.  He would at least give them a run for the money.

And he scampered away from tree to tree, near-falling once, until he realized they were not coming after him.  Wondering, he slowed his pace, caught his breath, and took his steps more carefully thinking that it would not do to break his leg now, just when he had won clear.

And then up ahead, he smelled delicious roasting meat, pork he thought, and his mouth salivated.  He pressed on toward the scent, until he was very close.  And then he became aware of a woman in robes looking straight up at him.

The robes were brown and long, and did little for her.  But with her strong-jawed face, and her wire blonde short cut, what some clueless sorts called a pixie cut because everyone knows that the beauteous pixies all have long, lustrous hair, she was not someone he would have asked on a date anyways.

But her inviting smile, and crooked finger led him out of the tree.  He might not date her, but he'd let her make him a pork bbq sandwich for sure.  After all, even if he was on a madhouse of a world, far from Earth, a man needed to keep his strength up.

And so he came to a clearing with three other females, all of the 'likely to be feminist' brigade, but the unearthly sweetness of their smiles was relaxing.  In the midst of the clearing was a short stone cooking pad surrounded by wood and flames upon which the meat cooked.  Odd, but hey, the Hawaiians buried a pig whole under the sand and palm leaves, and called it a luau, so he was not going to judge.

He showed by signs that he wanted a sandwich, and the youngest one, who was almost attractive, took his meaning, and produced a loaf of bread from a basket and so he took her knife and showed her what he meant by slices.  She pointed him to the stone to get the meat, and he turned to face it.

It was no pig on the stone. Shapes, small ahapes. Something broke in his mind, and he heard screaming.  And then finally he stood there panting.  The altar to darkness was tipped over, trashed, pissed on, and broken.  And the four priestesses were all scattered about the clearing.  Some had tried to flee, but all had been hacked and pierced and gouged.

He was covered from his boots to his sticky hair in blood, and he cast down the knife. And then quite deliberately vomited, being careful not to look too closely around the fire.  But there he picked up brands and began to toss them about.  Within a few minutes, the forrest was ablaze in a half-dozen places, and he laughed with a harsh bark before taking up the knife again.

He took off his clothes, and bathed as best as he could in a stream as the forrest grove burned behind him.  Methodical wethe re his steps, and so were his actions when he knifed two more of the singing men on the way to other walled city across the gorge.

Once there, he climbed the wall, and found himself staring into the hard faces of half a dozen white jacketted men with sharp spears aimed his way.

He touched his chest.

"Me Jeff." He said.

The End of 'Sing for Supper.'

Engrossed with the new tablet, Gerald Rankins put his coke in a foam cup on his desk, and began to sit down.  Only he did not for his chair was removed, and crying out, he fell sideways to the carpetted floor.  Laughter bloomed about him as he oofed his considerable mass on the classroom floor.  And then the unsweetened tea and ice met the new tablet in the air destroying an expensive device.  But before he could cry out that it was not his fault, and he did not have to pay, he saw with awe that lightning leapt from inside the tablet.  Fear gripped him as did the bolt of electric force.

And then he was screaming, and crying as fire ate at his right arm.  But quickly dragged free, and he saw three  young faces, Dissapointed, Watchful, and Hoping, he named them the dirty-faced white boys.  Looking about, he was on a beach, shaded by overhanging grape vines grown up some tree, the type of which, he noted with foreboding, was unclear in the twilight.

He had lost hours.  Plus, exchanged a classroom full of jerks and idiots, and a couple half-decent with three kids. On the bad side, his right bicep hurt, hurt in a way that made his eyes water.

"He's about to spray us with his demon blood from his eyes." Watchful said, pointing a bony finger over Gerald's expansive chest.
"No, no, shut up." He sat up, and looked back, and noted all the signs of a pentagram and lit candles, all on the beach, but messed up by his arrival.  He assuaged the superstitiously materialist part of his mind by not saying how he had got here.  Perhas he had sleepwalked here, he thought, clutching for a straw, even a rotten one.
"Demon, by your hundred times spoken name, I order you to crush my foes." Hoping ordered with what he hoped, sounded grand, but did not.
"Uh, yeah." The urge to correct these boys was strong, but Gerald reconsidered.  They were his only source of information, so he decided to play along.
"So who are  your foes?"
Out tumbled a tale of woe.  It involved broken arms, stolen foods, and monies, threats to family pets, and an indifferent adult leadership.  Gerald went at first from the tude of 'now vengeance is too much' to 'okay, some vengeance is okay for these scum' to 'black-hearted scurvy dogs, I'd like to teach these freaks a lesson' in the space of ten minutes.
"What about parents?" He asked, cracking his knuckles.
"In our world, Lord Demon, um what did you say your name was...?"
"I didn't, and why did you want to know?" Gerald replied.
"Well, we thought we conjured you with Geric King of the Dark Dells, but you've not gone up in flames, and gone to war yet, so..."
Gerald Rankins.....Geric King of the Dark Dells.....perhaps somewhere in some other dimension a demon was turning over in its bed for another snooze.
"Go on."
"Right. Since the Reorganization, no parents.  All children belong to the King."
Gerald shook his head in dismay.  He needed to do something for these kids, partly because they reminded him of him, but also because they could serve as his guide and food retrieval group in this new world.
"I'm not sure what to do."  He admitted frankly.  "I mean, I could catch these little...."
"Call up a Demon of Knowledge."
This ought to be good, Gerald laughed to himself.
"How?"
"Well, you repeat its name exactly.  And I mean exactly, or weird things could  happen."
Suddenly, Gerald wondered if his little joke was such a bright idea, considering how he seemed to have arrived.
"Yeah, like ten times for a minor imp..."
"How about ten thousand times..." Gerald said with a sudden flash of insight and terror running down his spine.
"You can't." Said Watchful, spitting out a wad of chewed bark from his mouth.
"I can."
"Maybe he can. He's a demon after all." Said Dissapointed looking more hopeful.
'Limjarikagneuphenairion' was the name given him, and he took a pic on his back pocket camera of a pentacle, and then typed in the name, and ran a simple imfinite loop...
Black, blinding smoke spewed across the beach, sending them all reeling, and coughing.
"ENOUUGH!!" Boomed out an irritated voice.
Trembling the four waited as the smoke cleared.
And there he/it was. Two heads, one of an elephant, and the other a twitchy moving pile of green snot, with the occasional rotten potato floating in and out of it, on a body wider than its widest, which was blatantly impossible, but around its chest, the laws of physics and logic seemed to have taken a vacation.  This still left its five blood-hoofs.
And then Gerald giggled, for it was an inch and a half tall, and standing on his camera phone inside the pentagram.
"MIGHTY WIZA...you're laughing at me." Both heads swivelled around, looked down, and then with horror looked at him.
"You're a verser. We thought we  have new rules for magic well before anyone built a Basic program infinite loop....AND PLEASE SHUT IT OFF!!...its giving me a headache. Thank you, verser."
"What's a verser?"
"Oh great, now this I'll never live down. Caught by a verser, and a total noob."
"Also, my friends are going to want some help."
"Overthrowing a kingdom. Destroying a solar system...?"
"Bullies at school." Hopeful said with a smile.
"Oh, the ignominy." Said the Demon Prince of Level 4,947 of the Netherhells.

Character: Verser/Proud to be a Detective/Manly/Loves guns/Likes being a hero/Doesn't bend, but may sometimes twist out of a problem/more interested in justice, not law.

The redhead across from Bieri McPherson's desk clearly found the white wall behind her a little odd.  If she had touched it, she would have found it cold.
"You have an eccletic design sense, Mr..." She glanced at the other four walls, each with its own design.
"Detective." He said. The people in this world had a hard time with his name.  It tangled on their tongues with its unfamilar vowels.  He otherwise ignored her opening gambit.
She stared at him, he stared at her.  She made as if to rise, and he did nothing.
"Oh, please, Mister, ah Detective, you have to help me." She wrung her hands together.  They were nice hands, soft, but not flabby.
"State your problem. And...sit." He hated to be rude, but the indigenous humans (he supposed, although they had only 22 sets of chromosomes) hated to get to the point.  To a man who despised passive-aggressive behavior, it could be maddening.
"My daughter is gone."
"Age?" He asked. Four meant one thing (parental custody battles, or real kidnapping), and ten (sleeping over at girlpal), and fourteen (seduced by older slug), and seventeen (off to be a Big Star in the big city, but soon to be turning tricks on Wynstatdt Avenue.)
"Two." She set herself more primly in the chair, her tan skirt to her knees.  His eyes flicked up from the case form he was filling out underneath the desk because no one Here had tablets.
"Your husband?"
"We're married. He's good. I mean, Dexter, and all that."
Bieri raised a hand understandingly, calling her to a halt. Twenty years ago Here, you could get a divorce for your spouse sneezing at the wrong time.  They had been called 'frivorces'.  The Dexter Laws, named for a county in Kalifornia where all the women in the county had divorced their husbands as a publicity stunt, had ended that.  Divorce was costly, and required proof of felony abuse.  People learned to get along, and a ton of bad juju went away as gangs died, and kids formed cricket leagues. Women at first had hated the Dexter laws, but now they were its biggest supporters.
"Ah, have the police been out with..." Bieri was himself stumbling, and Meredith Carter took pity on him.
"Dogs? Yes. But there was no trail.  He did not wander off, detective."
Thoroughly relieved, because the one time he had to remove the dead body of a kid had left him with the shakes for a week, the detective nodded.
"Thank you." He asked for her personal data, and she gave it. After consulting the IR scan, the camera hid in a fake copy of Blackstone's on his desk, he took the job.

His office was on the second floor of the Tidewell Building at Ninth and Eighty-Second Avenue.  He took the freight elevator to avoid questions and a pair of large boxes to the roof.  Up there, he checked for snoops, and then unboxed, and spun up the pair of drones.  One he tagged on himself, and one he kept on overwatch at the Tidewell. There were a few strange stories of giant hummingbirds near the Tidewell, but it went no where.  The assistant editor of the Daily was a former client of his, and squashed any such stories, so the five million in Laidland City knew nothing of the advanced tech floating over their heads.

Slipping on his sunglasses (prescribed by a bribed doctor), he swept the streets nearby.  Over on 83rd, Sergant Parkhurst was standing about looking bored and apprehensive.  Smiling, Bieri decided to relieve Parkurst of his anxiety.
"Augh." Parkhurst spun around after Bieri cleared his throat behind him.  Three other cops, boys in blue, spun about as well.
Bieri favored them with s sardonic smile.
"Cute, as always. Look Beer for Brains, I got a hot tip, I thought I'd pass it along to you."
"No thanks."
"Here it is."
"Stop."
"What for?"
Bieri just shook his head, and put his face in his hands.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:33, Fri 27 Feb 2015.

Reborn into a new universe, Kevin Gartensby, spent the next six hours kicking aside foot thick  fallen autumn leaves.  He was about sick with beauty, when in the clear fall, he hoped, air he smelt wood smoke.  Pressing on, more rapidly, the scent grew too strong, and soon he heard the crackle of flames.  Looking over the purple not-oak in his path, he saw flames kissing the sky.

He ran forward into a clearing with a wooden cabin, door hanging off, filled with fire.  If there was anyone in there...a moan from his right caught his attention.  The sound trail led him to a badly injured woman who might have been attractive if three-fourths of her skin were not burnt off.

Her eyes fluttered wildly, and Keven considered not waking her for it was clear she was soon to be dead.  Still, he checked his cell phone, and got 'no service available', and the words of a chant, and the drawing of a rune in the heavy soil lowered her pain, but did not heal her.

She babbled something now, with her eyes coming into focus.  After she grabbed him by the collar, he focused, trying to fight his nausea as he did.  She spoke harshly and pointed out to the left to an area of reeds.  But inside it, he could see a disturbance of bent and broken reeds that made up a trail.

Going that way, he found a baby in rags, playing happily in the mud at the roots of the reeds.  He took the little fellow back to his mother, and she forced a smile for him as she turned her head his way.  He gravely touched her face with his muddied hand, and Kevin could see the relief in her eyes.

But then suddenly, she turned and began to speak urgently.  It took more than a minute to tell her he did not understand. But he by signs made clear he would take care of the little baby who was sitting upright next to his mother's head.  She gave him a look of gratitude, and was set for more, when Keven gently turned her head back to her child.  The two spent the next three minutes talking and goo-ing to each other, and then she was suddenly gone.

The baby prodded his mother's now unresponsive face, and Kevin swept him up, and began to dance with him away from the body, and the cabin.  Soon he got the little one to giggle, but even still, the baby cast eyes back to his mother until they went around the cabin.

Here two acres of cleared field planted with some sort of root crop, Kevin thought were interspersed with weeds.  On the side of the cabin hung hoes that looked as if they were hammer made at a forge on an anvil.  This plus the small size of the farm led Kevin to speculate that this world was before the Industrial Revolution, yet it had been safe enough for a man  with a woman and a child to venture here on his own.

But not now, Kevin noted as he espied splattered viscera, and the clearly dead body of a man with a hoe blade near his hand.  Taking the baby in a wide loop to avoid him seeing his father so  brutalized, Kevin took the baby into the forrest along a wagon rut trail on the  far end of the cleared acreage.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:13, Sun 01 Mar 2015.

Jay Macintosh pushed himself out of his sedan, joints cracking a half-dozen times, and before closing the door in the cool autumn breeze, he took a moment to rub his face, and eyes behind his glasses.  He summoned up the gumption to face his home after facing his office all day.  They had wanted to know when the new parts they ordered yesterday would be in, despite him clearly saying yesterday, twice, twice that is, that it would take a week.

He knew now why Hobart had made him say it.  It was because Hobart had been supposed to order it earlier, but he wanted to make it seem like it was Jay's fault.  And if Jay had been willing to 'cause tensions' and waste an hour arguing with the slippery meeting room lawyer, he might have carried his point, and gotten written up.

Hobart had hair, and Hobart used to be a football qb, and Hobart treated the ladies like disposable condoms which they seemed to enjoy.  But when one of Hobart's so brilliant plants failed, he needed a scapegoat.  Jay was the designate.  His boss, Wilhelm would not fire Jay for 'Jay's errors' as long as he accepted the goat's role seemed to be unspoken deal.

"I have a nice car, a boat, a dozen rifles, a house mostly paid for, college money, and retirement money stowed away, and in fifteen years I can kiss these sycophants and cowards and deluded good-bye.  I don't even have to work that hard anymore as long as I accept the deal."

Jay straightened up in the suburban night, and smiled for the first time in two weeks.  Sure, he was trading the respect and honor due him, but his coworkers were idiots and honor from idiots was like ice cream dropped in a flower bed.  His steps lighter, he took his ample frame up the driveway, and the three steps, and into his home.

The sunken living room was Teenage Disaster Area, and Jay found himself not yelling.  Granted, mess, but honestly, whoever expected teenagers not to create a mess had obviously been cloned as an adult.

Patricia, his little girl, the little bundle he had carried down the hallway to the nursery in the hospital after his wife's C-section before the docs said she could not have more, lounged on a curving sofa (price $3000, and already kind of icky two years later.  Jay realized his wife had terrible taste.  He loved her, yes, but someone else was going to have to pick the furniture from now on.).  Next to her was Alicia, in her short, pink pants and tight...ahem.

Jay deliberately glanced across the room at the big screen TV they were watching.  If he had been twenty years younger, he's have definitely wanted to make time with the seventeen year old Alicia, but his role now was Dad, no, Father, not leering Old Man.  The two were looking up at him, a bit puzzled.

"Uh, Dad, I can clean up later the..." Patricia waved a vague, five different colored fingernail hand at the two open bags of chips, the dip, the salsa jar, the eight magazines with 'How to Perfect Make-Up in Five Minutes' and 'Too Slutty or not
Slutty Enough; The Dress to Catch Him'.  Jay was aware that he was not the target audience, but still those mags bothered him a bit.  He probed the feeling like taking tongue to wobbly tooth, but no clear insight came forth.

"And then your father said..."
Laughtrack.
"He said, the milk was on the car."
Laughtrack jumps the shark and the moon.
Man on screen looks harrassed and helpless.

"What's this?" He waved a hand from the upper passage at the back of the room toward the TV.
"Um, its, ah, 'Father's an..." His daughter was giving him a concerned look, half-rising from the sofa in clothing not much more modest than her friend's.  This annoyed him, he realized in the back of his head, but put it off for now as he had other fish to catch, skin, and fry gently in butter and pepper.
"Father's a Numbskull.  Its a joke on his name.  His last name is really 'Numbskull'."
"Cute." He grunted, and Alicia's chatter froze as did the gum hanging in her mouth.  If he hand wanted to, Jay could have got a good, clear glimpse of her tonsils at that moment which would have made him the fourteenth guy to be able to say so.
"Uh, Dad.."
"Turn it off."
"But..."
"You can read your mags on how high the slit on your thigh should be on your first date with  Prince Charming." The sarcasm was heavy in the air, and then his  head rotated toward her. "Now."
She walked slowly, and flounced more and more as she got over to the TV, and inexplicably to her failed to properly turn off the TV the first two times she tried.  Feeling as if he were about to scream, Jay stomped out.  Oh, he thought he stepped heavily, but it was a stomp.

"Have a cow, man." He heard in the distance, and rage flooded him as he stood in the inner hallway not wanting to enter the master bedroom and find his wife esconsced at the only desk in the house.  And more clarity came to him.  Taking a left at the first door, he came to the Cloth Room.  This was where Jenellen, his wife of twenty-two years, most of them good, stashed her piles of cloth that she bought, and promised to herself to use won this or that project, and never did.  Okay, almost never did.  In those years, she had done three, no four projects.

He spotted an old bicentennial design they had bought cheap in their first year of marriage.  Almost all of it was still here, still gathering dust.  And nicely flat, and long, and with some supports formed of piles of rolls, and a couple more roles, the beginnings of a desk.

He found a chair, and a clipboard, and later when his wife stuck her head in, and saw his rearangements, and particularly saw the Bicentennial roll, she chose the better part of valor and retreated.  Ten minutes later she came back with a coffee, two tablespoons of milk, and a fried ham and cheese sandwhich with a Kosher dill pickle on the side.

She asked if he were  okay, and with a strange lighthearted tone, he said he was.  Still more worried, as she had seen him quickly adding items to a list, she left to go talk to her mother on the phone about odd husbands, and mid-life crises, and how Dad was.

It was an hour later when he heard a motorcycle in front of his house.  Some of Patricia's friends had them, and he had forbidden her to ride with those friends on their bikes.  He was all too well aware of how little protection a motorcycle had, and how his darling, but erratic daughter could be easily distracted.  The thought of her driving a cycle was enough to make him nauseaous.

He ran out to the living room, and to the porch, but the only sign of the motorcycle was a red light in the distance, speeding away.

"She didn't drive did she?" He asked his wife as she came up on him, a bit concerned.
"No, no Jay. She didn't."
"Then who's she with....?" He rounded on her.
"Well, Alicia..."
Sensing that she was holding something back, he pressed forward a step.
"Howl." For a second, she thought she said 'Hobart' the pita from work, but then he caught the words the second time.  It was not that unmitigated jerk but some guy  named 'Howl' which was surely not   what his parents named him unless they were clinically insane.
Jay paced back, and turned back again as his wife stood there looking vaguely troubled.  She offered no help, and suddenly he knew that if he came up with a plan, she'd do her best to get in the way.
Why he could not say, but he knew suddenly it was true.
And then it occurred to him.  There really was only one way out of the subdivision, across Wayland Road Bridge.  it was two hundred feet of concrete, and dedicated to two governors and one mayor, and two city councilmen, and for dignity's sake, a war hero.  The rest of the city had whined about the expense, and reasonably so, Jay realized.  The poor had paid sales taxes to build a bridge they hardly used.
But as he was thinking this, he was getting the ladder, and a scope, and aagh, the scope wouldn't unlatch.  Shruggimng, he just decided to take the .308 rifle, scope and all.  Gun in hand, he went to the roof.  Up there it was easy to see the biker zipping on down Collins, and passing O'Keefe, and now on the straightway with three bums ..

Upon the roof, he swept the subdivision through the scope.  Suddenly he realized that things would look really bad if there was a police chopper in the sky, so he speedily glanced up, and scanned back and forth.  The sky stayed clear of both copters and clouds.  Under the night stars, he focused in on the bridge over the steep-sided and deep ravine.

A glimpse of the cycle showed him two riders.  The engine was bright red in the scope, and the two human riders who sat well back on the bike as if they were goofing off, Jay cursed in fear and anger, violating not the Commandment for his curse was not profane, but vulgar, and the engine seemed to split in two, separated by darkness.

And then the bike was off the bridge, and wheeling into downtown at speeds Jay knew as an experienced driver of some decades had to be at least fifty and below seventy, on a road built for forty.  The bike was out of sight, and he could hear his wife calling for him.  For a long second, he considered going back down.  She would offer comfort, and excuses not to do anything and respect for his forbearance, and hot chocolate.

No.

He looked out at the stars, holding his rifle pointed up, and considered.  The only conclusion he came to seemed insane.

"Time for some science." He muttered, and careful not to take a tumble, he came back down the roof, and the ladder.  Despite his wife's several attempts at what he realized were fake worries, he left the ladder there.

Inside, she fluttered about a bit, so he had mercy as he sat at the table with his gun in the corner.

"Hot chocolate."

She stared at him, not used to this calmly commanding man.

"Please." He added, and she flounced a bit, but went into the kitchen to get it looking much relieved to have something to do to spend her worries on.

"God," He muttered. "What do I do?"

And suddenly he knew.  It was not a big thing, but it offered embarrassment, no guaranteed it.  And he felt his mind coming up with various reasons not to do it.  Instead, he went to the sofa, and plopped down, and turned on a detective show.  When his wife came out with the chocolate, he took the mug, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and indicated she should sit down by him on the couch, under his arm.  She looked puzzled, but complied, and after a minute laid her head on the chest as she dreamily watched the show.

He smiled, and then paid attention to the antics of Det. Hall, and the heroics of Det. Morgan as they strove to save the city one more time.  By the end, his wife was asleep, and he slipped up, and lowered her down to the couch, glancing irritably at those magazines, before getting a small blanket for his wife.  Then he scooped up the mags, and took them to the trash can, and with malice aforethought, he looked about in the fridge for something spoiled, found a fermenting coleslaw, and dumped it in on top of the mags.

After that, he sat out on the front porch waiting.  He did not have to wait long.  His mind seemed unburdened and clarified now that he faced the right, and situations that would have been too hard to figure out before now seemed obvious.  His girl was mad at him, and wanted to flaunt her indepedence before her friend so they called Inappropriate Boyfriend who owned a bike.  But after some kissing and laughing, and eating of fudge brownies downtown, she would start letting her fear of his anger and his fear get a stronger grasp on her and start agitating too go home.

The boy would probably go along, after a bit, with a promise of a further date/make out session this weekend.  Well, we'd see about that, Jay thought a touch grimly.

The fact that Jay waited another half hour longer than he thought he would testified to his theory.

Humming inanely to himself, sitting on the front porch, his elbows on his knees, and his hands flung out as if in supplication, Jay waited.  The motorcycle pulled up in the street, and the boy, if that was the right term, took his sweet time about kissing his daughter, vulgarly pawing her at length until she forced him to stop, but not from any deep sentiment.
"Bring your boyfriend up." Jay called jovially.  "Want to meet the man who could be marrying my daughter."
And that sealed it.  The cyclist had not planned on going up, facing the father unit, bearding the old wolf in his den, but with the bait he had trolled past his daughter's nose there was no way she was going to let her boyfriend off the hook.
So with giggles, and squirms, and an odd upright stance that so differed from her behavior except where it bobbed from the vertical, she shoved, led, and carressed the guy in the motorcycle jacket with the flaming skulls on his sleeve which Jay pretended not to notice.  He also ignored the tattoos on the man's, for Jay was sure the fellow was not in high school, even if he looked kind of young.  His manner was too calm.
Jay again, did not notice the knife in the side pocket, or the way this fellow looked at his daughter as a possession, and a cheaply priced one at that.
Patricia was all bubbling, and convinced that she had everything she had ever wanted.  The support of a stable, responsible father, and a too hot to trot bad boy as a date, and, well, maybe marriage.  She could see her future glowing before her.
"So let's pray." And Jay put his head down, but did not close his eyes.  Instead, he made sure to grasp both hands on both sides of himself, and as he suspected one was refridgerater chilled.
"Jesus..."
The cold handed one jerked his hand free, and snapped.
"You weird man. I must go."  The original language had come out.  It sounded odd, quite odd, and Jay had heard a fair number of accents when his team had to teleconference with another team.
The cold handed one, ran, and kicked his bike into gear, and roared off, but not before blowing a kiss to Patricia.
"Oh, Daddy....I was, I thought, and then I ....."
"Its okay, pumpkin." From inside his jacket he pulled out a small bottle of whiskey.
"Dad!!"
"Ordinarily, I'd say never, but this night is a good one for it. Now go to bed, and drink, and tommorrow things will be better."
She went up the stairs, and into her room, passing by a sleeping mother.  Strangely mom had an anti-nausea pad on her arm, which always made her sleepy.

A few minutes later, and Jay sat on the roof.  He called Patricia on her cell phone, and got no answer despite pretending to be one of her friends.  Spoofing phones was not so hard, not compared to being a phone phreak back in the day.

Satsified, he lined up.  The motorcycle was tearing out of the subdivision at over a hundred miles per hour, taking curves which would have made a sane driver scream like a little girl.  But Jay's mind, and his target laser, turned and focused in on the bridge.

Twenty seconds.

Ten seconds.

The rider was really opening up, doing one thirty if Jay was any judge, but the high speed worked to Jay's advantage.  Even inhumanly perfect reflexes hit a limit in the craftsmanship of the cycle.

Jay saw him through the scope.  He saw his silhouette as he passed a hot, fastmover.  The cold one was really cold.  Jay wondered how he disquised this around the girls.

But then it was almost time, and suddenly a thought hit him, and he wondered if he had been doing this all wrong.  So he shifted his aim two inches.  The resulting fireball....

But before he could do that, a few other things to do.  He flipped on the video camera, and made sure it was recording.  The cool, night air lent him a smile, and he grunted as he forced his voice down.  Then he picked up his wireless phone and called the metalhead two doors down.

"You rotten, stinking brat. Turn that trash you call music off, and go to bed, or I swear..."  He flipped off the phone, thankful for the disguise block. Forty seconds later, a loud yell echoes through the night.

"This is music, you spineless twerps!" And then Kyle the Metalhead, and probable meth user kicked his basement music system into overdrive, and began slamming out....

"Your fields so soft, so green, will soon drip with gore..."

Rather appropriate Jay thought, and lined up the shot.  Arouund him doors were being flung open, and neighbours were howling in outrage.  It was a splendid racket.

The motorcycle straightened out, and picked up speed to a hundred thirty, Jay thought.  You have to be insane to try to outrun a bike with a car, but at the same time, you had to be suicidal to think that playing bumper cars with a car would end well.

Jay led the shot, felt it, and was startled when the shot went off.  This was as it  should be.

The bullet spiralled across the subdivision, and the story would have been far different if the dove that was flying nearly a straight line for home on the church roof.  But instead it was two feet higher than it ought to be, and instead it just squawked in dim surprise before going on.

The sound of the bullet, muffled by a pillow, in the midst of the shrieks, threats, and booming music stopped everone for a half-second as they were uncertain what that sudden noise was.  But then the screaming began again.

But the bullet had already cleared the stone railing, in elegant Art Deco, and leapt across the thirty feet separating it from the gas tank between the Unacceptable Boyfriend's legs.  The bullet arrived much faster than sound, and so vampiric reflexes had nothing to dodge, and it entered the right side of the tank, and exited the left side in far less time that it takes to say the first word of this sentence.

The bullet cleared the left railing, and ran down the ravine a thousand feet before richocheting harmlessly off the first rock, supposedly clay from the Pleistocene, but actually some clay dumped by Kyle Marcus in 1845 after he finished digging out the winter storage for his new bride.  At the same instant, the heat from the impacted metal set the gasoline on fire.  But it was more of an explosion, than a burn.

Those formidable reflexes yanked the vampire up and back from the flame just before he sucked in the fatal breath that would have charred him from the inside out.  Still, he was up to his neck in fire, and as he had spent centuries on a horse, and only a few decades on a motorcycle. he pulled back instinctively.  This reaction was not at the level of conscious thought, it could not be.

But, it hit the brakes, and as he was already going up, the kicking of the back of the bike merely pushed him higher.  Sheathed in flames, he rose like an angel over the highway over the bridge.

The bullet bounced further, hitting a stem which tilted it further down.  The vampire rose to the top of his arc, a good forty feet above the road, and began frantically patting out the flames.  His hands moved at speeds that would have awed Bruce Lee, and the fire began dying.

The bullet hit the bottom of the ravine, and bounced again, clipping right between a nibbling bunnies's ears.  The vampire had put out the flames, and to his horror he saw he had neither legs, which had been most exposed, or forearms which had been used to beat out the flame.

But he still unlived.

The bullet flew on, and smacked into a solid chunk of wood, and rattled about, bouncing from leaf to branch, and back again.  The vampire fell, plotting his vengeance.  The bullet landed atop a cockroach, and killed it, settling to its end.  The vampire, now a temporary quadriplegic fell back down into the flaming mess of the motorcycle which had toppled and skidded forward enough to be his landing pad.

His last thought was God, you really hate me.

The cockroach's last thought was ugh. And that was that for him.

But the vampire, no longer a vampire, just a rebellious awareness, dripping with blood of the innocents heard a Voice say with calculated menace.

"Yes, yes, I believe I do."

The Cat's hunting grounds comprised a dimensional shard, a bundle of interconnected, and similar universes.  She was frequently hungry, and often bored.  Two impulses that sometimes warred against each other.

"You can't." The thing, draped in many amusing, taunting dancing ribbons, stank of death, and unlife, and better still, Evil.  Her nose twitched, and her claws scraped the marble of some temple to what the locals thought had been a god.  The being, who if questioned would admit to an angelic, and possibly also a demonic past, or simply being a long-lived patriarch born of Adam.  The undead thing, its reek washed over her, crinkled her nose so that she must sneeze.  No, she was the mistress of her body.

"You'll find, or you would, if you had time to search, but there is very little a cat can't carry out."  The Cat yawned prodigiously.  Its mouth space the size of a canteloupe, and its jaws always gleamed, unless the Cat wanted to hide from a prey.

The mummy turned and ran for the exit door, or so it thought.  The Cat leapt, and landed on  the thing's oddly bright and new backpack.  The impetus drove the once traitor and assassin, now mummy, into the ground, and from there the Cat began to pull on the ribbons of thread swathing the  creature.

"By Bast, Great Goddess of Cats...!" The mummy began to cry out a protection spell.
The Cat, for that was all its name, put its right pawn on the creature's mouth.
"Hush, Little sis can't help you now.  Dreadful thing. Even after I notched her ears, she still refused to be respectful."  The Cat sniffed in remembered annoyance.

And then the last of the ribbons came off, and The Cat began to play with them on the dusty marble floor.  She flicked one paw this way, and then another back the other way, delighting in the moment.  The mummy started to slide away on its back, propelled by fingers and ripples of shoulder, and then The Cat glanced its way, and gave a little snarl.  The now naked mummy, an almost pitiable thing lay shivering on the cool floor.

And then the Cat came back, and the Mummy held up the backpack.

"A college student, Fred Williams, opened my crypt.  I possessed him with my magic as my corpese was too far gone to rise again.  Kill me, and you kill him, and he's innoc..."

The Cat slashed with one lazy forepaw through the chest of the mummy, separating shoulders from stomach.

"Bored." The Cat said sulkily, and then began to eat the points of the Mummy most closely aligned with Evil.  It was a nice repast, but only a little amusement.  The Cat began looking around for another mousehole as her keen senses caught track of something.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:05, Mon 09 Mar 2015.

The Cat burrowed through the mousehole, created by those Disciples of Entropy, the hated destroyers, but they squeaked most amusingly when gently punctured, so they were not wholly useless, The Cat thought again, not unhappy to repeat itself.  It was not a human, to get bored with its own magnificent thoughts.

On the far side, during Carter's second term, the Rus launched, and despite counterments from the White House, so did the Ami.  The world burned in nuclear fire, and The Cat lay on its side, and enjoyed the warming heat, and purred softly as the Last Free Men killed the Slaves, and in so doing, died free and glorious, but The Cat did not notice.

Time passed, and the heat of radioactivity began to die down, much to The Cat's annoyance.  So it sat up, looked about for amusement, and found none.  She then dutifully licked her paws and face.  That done, she looked for another mousehole, but here, their work was done.

Miserable monsters. Never around when you needed them.

So she flexed her claws and began to dig, first dirt, then electromagnetism, and then the long waves of gravity were shredded, and she stepped through, finding a sudden irresistableness in her path.  And thus she came into a high loft, festooned with the Hermetical Arts, a place that had once been a factory floor, and was now a sanctum.

"You've come." The male baritone voice had a gladsome cheer, bu then it harsssshennnnedddd.
"As I commanded."  He stood in the midgst of a forty foot wide pentagram on the floor, and on three=fourths of each side stood a loose array of twenty vampires along with a few ash piles which had been tasty treats.

"Go now, Creature of Inky Darkness, and you wil not be harmed.  I am the Prince Shadowed of these fell creatures.  I am Reyanavignik.  I have seen empires rise and fall."

A yawn both wide and vocal and slow interrupted him.

"I saw the Sun go on for the first time.  Well, one sun, not sure it was this one.  They all look alike, and taste like chicken, badly cooked chicken."

Ideas for 'Planet Fatness' based on the PF story, and 'Girls Preperatory' based on Christian wives as high value mates in Roman times.

=================================================================================

The leader of the vampires stood with his kind outside the protective pentagram.  Occasionally one of them would push the air above the guards, and then wince back.  They were clothed in black, with an occasional bit of dark crimson, a tie for the leader, a scarf, some socks, a ruby ring sullen in a heavy gold setting, but all refined, and yet subtly aggressive.

The Cat thrashed its tail, once, twice, and almost a third.

"Why is food talking?"

And with that, they came in a sudden sheet, a uniformity of purpose, each one slotted into an attack formation like a spearhead.  But The Cat was not there.  It leapt high over head, and came down next to R something, the too talkative food.  He bolted, and made it all the way to the wall, such was his superhuman speed, but he left his spine behind, and part of his jacket as well.

Across the room, the vampire, twitched, and coughed up blood, and fell over dead.  The others skidded to a halt, and stumbled over themselves.  Their tight-knit coordination went away, but to The Cat's chargrin, they did not all fall dead.

Still, this gave the Cat some fun, and he gaily dived into the untangling pile of vamps, shredding limb from chest, and so forth.

By the end, they were all, well, doubly dead, disarmed, dismantled, and they had been dismayed, but now their spirits supped with the Devil.  The Cat was replete with magic and evil, and had enough rips and scratches in her black fur to make up the map to the Eighth of the Underhells of the Lords of the Abyss.  She staggered off, going left, then right, then back again, and back again until she collided with a wall.

"Magician, you summoned me, so I must kill you."
"Or I could flee now." And he threw down a spark from which sprang fog and dazzling light to obscure vision and scent.  He was gone.

The Cat wobbled, and collapsed.  After a few minutes, she began licking her wounds.  It would take a few hours for her skin to heal back, for the exposed bone to be blanketted by muscle, sin, and dark fur.  She did plan to slay the magician for his insult in summoning her with th escent of catnip.  Instead, she slept, and dreamed of chasing Mice Eternal, vicious creatures who had sold their souls to the Fallen One.                        l

On the Unoort Space Observatory, mildly famous for disproving the existence of the Oort Cloud, a dozen humans exercised for various values of the term in the Planet Fatness gym on the 98th Level of the ring station.  The transparent sapphire window gave a good view of Pluto below, with its abundant ice mines, and its even more promiscuous hyperspace cannons.

From the Great Fort with its dozen antimatter engines, a man could press a button and annihilate a planet inside the heliopause, unless it was well hidden by Sol.  And he could reach out half a lightyear, and create a differential speed imbalance in a hyperdrive ship run by the aliens.  Even the mightiest dreadnaught did not enjoy having its aft accelerated to two million c's, while its bow stayed the same speed it had before impact with the DSI created by a hyperspace cannon.  Not all of the novas seen in Earth's astronomical history had been caused by stars.

But the engines idled, and the cannons barely maintained standby, and their residual heat powered the great ice factories for free.  Because as the Five Sided War heated up, the Over Council took notice, and imposed peace. Earth being at almost the exact center of the Universe was young, and so were many nearby species, the lizardoid Strellkin, the Voi'imak,di whose mere presence caused PTSD in Humans, and the Mosk.  But, the Over Council represented the older parts of the Universe, and they were not amused by 'flagrant littering' as they called the firing of a hyperspace cannon.

And when a robot informs you that there will be peace, and turns off the suns of the five warring races at the same moment, and turns them back on when requested, well, there is peace.

So such was the setting in Planet Fatness as Jerry Airworker, a deep atmo mod aka heavyworlder, who worked in an air plant deep in Jupiter's Eye, began to strain under the weight of 538 pounds of free weights.  Next to him, a cold-faced Tal O'Neill4 (a descendant of High Crew from one of the original Near Earth O'Neills) and thus of at least minor social note, shoved a hundred ten pounds skyward.  Two gym stations down, Rik of Creche #19, fought goblins and dragons in a VR sim with a weighted sword, and an encircled safety barrier.  Ellen Richmanson, of more social note, and Tina Da of little note, both walked on their walking machines.  Three more empty stations down, and Emmissary to Humans Orange Green waited for treaty violations.

It had operated for 2,198 days, and have 432 days to go before its successor, Black Red took over.  In that time, it had noted and dealt with exactly two treaty violations.

Further on, a half-dozen more Humans and one Mosk exercised.  The Mosk did work hard, for its species type, which was very frail.  The Humans, keen to congratulate themselves, never used more than ten percent of their capabilities.  He kept an eye on the Mosk, since the War or 'act of littering' had been rather one sided in the Human vs. Most side of things.  Humans simply were better at War than Mosk.

The Mosk, matte white, with pink extra 'hearts' in their 'tricep' region had been around for fifteen thousand years since Creation, and thought that sufficient advantage over the Humans' seven thousand years of existence.  But the Mosk wholly lacked in berserkergang, or in button-pushing bored killers.  Mosk wars were things of maneuver, lasting decades, compared to the usual Human war which lasted but a few  years before victory or burnout.  If the Over Council had not interfered, most likely the Mosk would now be extinct, but the Humans would have been as well, as some of the other warring species were not so incompetent at slaughter as the Mosk.

A shriek, female Human, came from the refrehertory areas, and the robot floated that way on its agrav generator. Its generator was the size of a six sided die, and as powerful as the station's agrav generator which took up twenty million cubic yards, and was far less reliable as its mean time between failures was measured in years, not eons.

A distraught human female, of child-raising years, exited the refreshertory, and yelled to the attendants at the desk that there 'was a man' in there.  The robot discontinued its interest.  Human crimes were not in its jurisidiction.

They checked, and exited with an irritated human male, who claimed to 'self-identify as female'.  At which point, the staff attendents became very apologetic, to the man using the woman's refreshertory.  The robot checked its databases, and its understanding of the Tao which with variances for different biologies, ruled all species in the galaxy from the least to the star movers.  Humanity seemed poised for a 'dark age' brought on by disavowal of the Tao.  It was probably an after effect made possible by the intervention of the Council.  But historical researches showed Human's decided tendency to go away from Truth even without a major emotional  shock.  All species had this, but Humans were far to the right side of the bell curve in this way.

The human female, moderately attractive by human standards, continued to press her complaint.  She was told this was a 'Non-Judgemental Area', and she had better zip it.  She did, in shock, and then turned to the other females and began crying without a word.  The robot thought it an effective tactic.  And then the guards hustled her out of the Planet Fatness, telling her on the way that she was 'banned' for 'judgmentalism' and 'imposing morality'.

Twenty minutes later, the atmo jock grunted as he lifted the near six hundred pounds on to his shoulders.  And suddenly an alarm went off.

"No Lunkheads!! No Grunting. No Lunkheads!!"
And a beam of light, pale blue with fuzzy edge hit the atmo jock in the back, and froze him in position for a good twenty seconds.  Some of the other, less enthused lifters laughed and giggled at the atmo jock.

But calling them 'lifters' insulted the real thing, as if you called walkers, runners.  They were 'toners', but full of advice on how to lift.  Jerry glared at them, but since he was stasis locked, they smirked behind their hands at each other.

And then like lead, a quiet voice spoke.  But it was too quiet.  So, Tal tried again, this time almost yelling.

"You're making too much noise."  The toners tried to sneer at him, but his expression fell off his face, and only his eyes shone.  In them was the endless depths of ice space, of days spent without a word as rocks were juggled in their various orbits for maximum efficency in picking them up.  And suddenly the toners turned away, still giggling to each other.

Tal considered walking over there, starting something, but then he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. Airworthy's stasis lock was off.

"I'll take care of it, friend." The low baritone was vibrant, confident, and everything Tal knew he was not.  Unlike the toners, Tal did not lie.  He was the most honest person he knew.  After all, if you're near totally useless, what's the point of lying?

Still, the way the atmo jock has said 'friend', even if Tal knew it was just a minor kindness, nearly broke down the walls inside his soul.  He found himself following without thought.

But before the atmo jock could do whatever he planned to do to the far smaller toners, he head a scream, full of terror and pain, and whipped his head about, hunting for the source, while crouching behind a gym machine for cover.  Death and doom had come for him, as he had always known they would.

The robot saw the coming inter-human criminal behavior by an apex predator among the humans, a Lion, against a crowd of scavengers, or Hyena Pack, and made no move to act.  Interhuman criminality was not part of its jurisdiction.

A yRndcrorastrian stood nine feet tall, scales ranging from turquoise to forrest green covered its exterior muscle sheath, which covered the interior endo skeletal muscular system which by human standards was hyperactive, and outsized.  To add trauma to terror, each of the three  fingers and two thumbs on each of the triple jointed arms held piercing and sawing, all in one, talons.  A full grown male yRnd warrior could punch through an inch of steel plate.

Currently the one dominating the far end of the gym was in the seocond long aisle, and stripping the meat off a female human's calf, while his victim below him bled out in a sudden spasm, and moved no more.

Jerry and Tal found themselves unning toward the creature who almost bruhed th in house lights with his head, and then the   robot spoke, and non one moved.

No one could move.

"What you are doing, Most Horrible and Destructive Being?  This is an act of war, it is such that I ma put here to stop.
"I self identify as a human male.  Thus this is interhuman criminal behavior."
"It is not my concern then." The robot said after reviewing various policies, and the humans defintions of things.

PurpleOrange hovered six inches above the notional floor provided by the Human space station orbitting, if poorly, Pluto.  The lack of stretching of the underlying quantum foam left the robot feeling off kilter, and the sheer oddness of being older than this centrality, of being in a place where stars and planets were a merce fraction of his age, left him feeling scratchy all over.

In reply to Tadeusz (msg # 140):

BlueGreen agravved six inches above the notional floor of the Human provided space station 62nd deck, and fretted about his shell of demassified neutronium not fitting on his interior stapleworks correctly.  The local space-time, fifty thousand lightyears from the center of the Universe, was practically flat, but BlueGreen who had been activated in an older section of the universe still, after 2397 days had not gotten his 'temporal legs' on this mission yet, and so he prayed for relief, and found it.

Floating down the curvilinear hallway, echoes of his earlier panic attack still bouncing around his glassine circuits, an enormous transparent sapphire window to the right, and planetward, BlueGreen ran a cursory check on the antimatter engines, and hyperspace cannons embedded into the surface of Pluto.  All were idling.  After his predeccessor's predeccesor, OrangeYello had summarily ended the Five System War by turning off the local suns, the Humans had idled the interstellar weapons of their 'Grand Fortress' in accord with the demands of the subcommittee of Elite Civs of the greater committee of Civs over fifty thousand  years old.  And they had accepted overwatch from robots such as him.  BlueGreen was here to keep the peace.

A confabulation of inferences, condensates virtual, thoughtform decay rates rising to a critical node appeared in front of him.  All of these forces were part of what lay below the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces, which Human science was only beginning to crack now after seeing such demonstrated for 8497 days since the Announcement of Peace.  Girding itself, sparring a petasecond for a prayer, BlueGreen moved forward.  The trail led him to a small, Human gym.

Planet Fatness had three rows of exercise devices ranging from the exotic to the refreshingly mundane.  Behind it sat the receptionist's counter, and on that waited a plate of donuts, both chocolate frosted and not.  To the right were the rather large Women's and men's changing areas.

BlueGreen frosted through the wall, not bothering with a door because the notions of solidity and leverage behind it were so far from Reality that such was aesthetically displeasing, annoying even.  Instead, he left a ring of frost on the inside of the door after he passed through it.

The robot noted that everyone in the room quickly noticed his presence, but no one seemed inclined to yell, and shriek at him as some in the larger metroplexes on Earth did.  Inserting a data probe into the company net, he ascertained that the gym was Human only in preference, but there were four Mosk's the minimal number of Mosk able to work in public without a mental collapse.

The Mosk were translucent white, with red extra 'hearts' in the triceps region of their four armed spiderish stance.  They flexed their interior length, and their third joints in each leg with a stiff bar pressing back across their back.  The robot noted that the fifty pound weights were stressing the Mosk by a good twentieth of their whole capacity.

They seemed to be optimizing for endurance, but then they went for even less effort. A flicker of amusement ran through the glassine circuits of the robot as his random insight chart spun out possibilities, rather similar in effect to a Tarot deck, without magic, and with a million combining cards.  They exercised to claim they exercised, to show their committment to greater Mosk Unity, but each pod, and each individual in the pod was trying to minimize its labor while maximizing its status.  This explained why Mosk communiques focused on complaints, 78% to other topics, and why the Humans had nearly destroyed the Mosk in the Five Species War.

Humans warred in one of two modes, raiding, or destruction.  Raiding was intermittent, and could last for decades, and destruction could last at most for a decade before burning out.  The Mosk's military thought had stagnated for the last four thousand years, attempting to replicate a peculiar time, where the current system which combined the worst of both worlds of the Human war styles, time wastage and total committment with grandiloquent calls for True War had been a stunning success.  Now by edict of the Elite Subcommittee, the Mosk were protected from the Humans.  Which in practise meant if one of the Humans here threw a bottle of water at a Mosk, the Human would be, well, more than disintegrated.

The robot floated on, noting the two human females of mid-childrearing age, who showed none of the biochemical markers of such an activity to the robot's chemsensors.  Those same sensors picked up the scent of a yRdcanastrian in contemplation, about last week.  That was odd, and anomalous, and given a higher priority in the data structure than usual.  Inside, the robot's mind, he was constructing a mountain, made of facts.

The females were covertly viewing the bioengineered airplant worker with lust.  Meanwhile, another human female, a bit overweight, came up, and helped herself to a confection at the main counter after entering through the second door.

"Ummm. I don't eat these that much. Only here." The implied message was that she only ate this sugar here, but to the robot's chemsensors she was swathed in an aura of sucrose, fructose, caffeine, chocolate, and ice cream.  Noting her wedding ring, he surmised and checked for discoloration caused by use. Yes, it was new.

The jellydog, a plastiformed grape jelly shape, formed in the shape of a hot dog bun, with a core of sugar milk cream, dunked in chocolate, and sprinkled with white sugar went down her mouth in one gulp.  Her internal anxiety measures calmed by 54% almost immediately.

Remarkable, the robot noted.

She then turned to the exercising men, as if casual, and did not pay attention to her wedding band.  Her flatly disspassionate gaze lied as her heart picked up 23% in rhythm as she viewed the bioengineered man.

Odd, the robot thought.  The biogenes, by Human law, have to have special permits to have children.  The robot approved. The Metla had 'helped' the Voian by engineering them out of a  problem.  Thing was that three generations later, all of the descendants of the biogened began to emit a wide array of bioweaponry.  Even for civs that were in the 20k range like both those had been, a sentient biostructure was incredibly complicated.  Humans thought they had it almost figured out, the robot snorted in amusement.  Current studies suggested they would maintain that sunny optimism for at least another millenia before they realized just how hard the problem was, and buckled down to the real work.

The next group was of four humans, all reasonably fit, but well under optimum.  They were lifting in the ten to twelve percent of optimum range, and occasionally a teeny grunt, slipped out.  The robot's sensors checked the wall alarm.  For some reason, this establishment had a 'no grunting' rule which the robot found odd since it was purportedly a gym.

This suggested the place was not a gym.  The random guess generator settled on the possibility of Head of Interstellar Cabal Dedicated to Overthrowing Galactic Civilization which caught the robot off guard, and it took him nearly eight seconds of concentrated thought, and noticing of details to determined that this was not that.  The robot let the thought go with sadness as such a cabal would be 'kewl', and incredibly fun.

The four exercisers, who called themselves 'lifters' except for the new guy who just said 'nah, I'm just here to get toned.' which caused a freeze of disapproval from the others.  Evidently pleasant exercise meant to hold weight, and gently invigorate the body was frowned on by this subculture.  Humans were strange.

The biogene was Jerry Airworker, and a quick check in his file, which was barred from reading except by Humans armed with court orders, or by the whim of the Council's agents showed he worked in Jupiter's atmosphere as a bagger and tagger.  That is, he straightened out notoriously finicky mile long, one mil thick air bags, and then tagged them as ready for shipment to the asteroids who needed the Jupiterian O2.  Unlike older Human thought, no one lived on Jupiter, but to survive in the atmosphere did require enormous strength, and a skin the consistency of bull hide with nicitating membranes over the eyes.

A Jupiterian baby was born with four arms. two great ones, and two small ones.  These fused together by the first  year, so that a grown Jupiterian had parallel humerus and radius bones, along with a doubled elbow joint on each side, plus a cross chest support bar to keep the ribs from being collapsed inward and crushing the internal organs of the lifter.

At one level, the Human seemed unaware of anyone else in the room, but a careful analysis revealed he was not.  Instead, his every motion rippled out, as if he were a band leader.  The only one who did not follow him was the man standing next to him.

The robot swore at himself for finally noting this man.  It was not like he was hiding, there was just something that was like he was not there.  Despite superstitions of ghosts running through his secondary thought structure, a simple analysis revealed the cause.  Everyone in the room was in a complicated dance, some missed a step here and there, but it was all orchestrated by the Jupiterian.  Except for the man next to him, a thin man, with unkempt hair, and unfashionable clothes who seemed to wobble around on a chaotic dance of his own.

And then the female with the still undigested jellydog screamed from the female lockeroom.  She came thundering out, and the robot noted that she was ten years and forty pounds from optimum attractiveness, she was still holding on to remnants of a startling beauty.  This was made plain by a bikini top and shorts.

"There is a man in there." She huffed.  Chance of fatal respiratory overexertion followed by shock, and breath cessation followed by death  was 1.8%, the robot noted.  Flinging about her towel, the two attendants came up to her from behind the desk with  sypathy that seemed unreal.

And then a tall man, in no clothes at all, emerged from the female lockeroom.  His beard was dark brown, and his mustache had nice points on it.  He was dripping wet, and looked thoroghly indignant as he towered over the woman from before.

"I don't believe this nonse..."
"See, I told you there was a man in the woman's..."
"Oh, for crying out loud. This bigoted nonsense.  I tried to tell you that I am a pre-op transgender female who identifies as a female."  He spread his hands wide in a gesture of reasonableness.
"You're a man." She echoed an ancient movie.
"Now listen!"  His arm almost vibrated as he waved his finger in her face.  "I've had enough of this bigoted, prejudicial attitude among you back planetary iceworlders.  You need to get with the times..."
And then there was a shriek of mortal terror.....

Thoughtform decay rates accelerated from potentiality to actuality, and condensates non-virtualized as the robot desperate  spun.  A male 'toner' was being lifted by right knee, upside down, while a yRndcastrian lizard man, slurped the meat off his detached calf leg with evident relish.

The sentient was nine and a half feet tall, and betaloned, and even without weapons, he was death on two hind legs, rather like that of a kangaroo.

Shrieks of fear, and a few yells of outrage, were punctuated by an attendant placing a call to station security.

"Stop, Hologia 'D'Kran of the House MIan.  You are engaged in an act of war against the Human Polity.  If you do not cease, you will be destroyed by me, an agent of the Elite Civs."

Hologia stopped.
"There ya' little punk.  We have laws, you stupid brute." One of the other toners said.
"Yes, you do." He turned to the robot.  "I self identify as a pre-op Human."
The robot's mind whirled, and for a tenth of a second, it suffered such severe shock as to be unable to function.
"Accepted." The robot paused. "This is based on Human law." He explained to the Humans who were about to die.
Hologia plucked the complainer up by the neck, and as soon as his eyes focused on meatsnack #2, Jerry Airworker moved.  He ran, low, tilting forward, and flew the last ten feet.  His arms, the  size of a normal man's  waist, grappled around the lizardmen's chest bearing him down.

The warm blooded mammal reacted a tenth of a second faster than the  biogengineered cold blooded lizard.  And he scrambled up the beast, and locked his arms around the lizardman's neck.  Straining he felt the neck begand to give.

The robot was startled.  This human had reacted astoundingly well.  It must be an elite member of its species, an Alpha, perhaps even a high, natural alpha with training.  And then the human bunched up its muscled, and made ready for another twist even as nearby humans took the brunt of the slashing claws.

"Hhnnnnnieeghhhh!" The neck started to go, and the 'No Lunkhead' alarm on the wall blazed forth. A bright, blue stasis beam, fuzzy-edged due to some odd temporal effects that affected even the robot, locked Mr. Airworker in position.  The lizard man broke free, and spun about to glare triumphantly at his still flash frozen attacker.

He raised a clawed hand back so that Jerry Airworker could see the glittering talons that would end his life.

"Um."  Thoughtforms suddenly condensed.  The voice was oddly low.
"Um!" The voice was too high, but it did catch everyone's attention.  Tal stood there, his eyes black.
"I identify, self-identify as Mosk."
The lizardman lunged at the human with the odd eyes, and the trembling arms.  Signs of distress were everywhere, but the robot looked, and in those eyes, he saw death.  A question had been asked of him, how was it that Humans fought so effectively.  Their Alpha leaders, aggressive, combative, vain-glorious, and their Beta assisters, and their teamplayers who manned the vast ships, the Deltas, all contributed in their own way to Human fighting power, but the equation had not been finished.  An objective account of damage done could not be matched up with Alpha heroics, Beta help, and the band of brothers, not by a long shot, but now the robot saw another fighter in the Human.

A cold merciless thing, outcast from birth, seeing clearly in a way that no one else could, and dreadfully terrified, but ...

"I could have picked the Maynorsk." The Omega said.  "You are not allowed to attack them.  But, the Mosk, oh, well, they can attack you.  An oversight, I suppose because they never did attack you before."

A spin kick even as the lizardman tried to back away, and it elicited a tiny grunt.  Stasis beams and the lunkhead alarm went off again.  And then the Omega climbe up top of a machine, and began to impatiently order the others who resented his orders, but did them anyways to hand him weights.

These were positioned above the lizardman on the upper arm of a weight machine.  And just before the stasis beam went off, the weights were chunked off, smashing the creature into the floor, exposing its skullbones.  And then the Omega went over, and picked up another one of the almost too heavy for him to hold weights, and methodically beat the aliens head in, until there was nothing but paste.  Meanwhile, the females in the crowd were vomiting, fleeing, or seeking comfort in the arms of the Alpha.

the Omega stood up, and glanced at the Alpha who nodded in approval.  And that was when the spell of madness seemed to break, and the Omega fell to the ground weeping.  None of the females comforted him, even though he had saved them, and when the head shrinkers came, the Alpha made sure to impress on them that the Omega was a war hero, and to be treated as such, or there would be unpleasant personal consequences.  With that, he disentangled himself from the too eager to be comforted, and sought out another gym, one where he could grunt as he liked.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:47, Tue 24 Mar 2015.

Hero: A Verser Detective with advanced Tech, and some Magic

Drone controller.

=====================

World: Even Info is hard to transfer, so Info becomes vancian jewels and such.  Hero doesn't want money...he wants to create org with him on top, bound by favors.

Hero downloaded into 'girl'.  For a moment, sh ethinks with joy that she's just nothing, a dreambot.0

Hero: A Verser Detective with advanced Tech, and some Magic

Drone controller.

=====================

World: Even Info is hard to transfer, so Info becomes vancian jewels and such.  Hero doesn't want money...he wants to create org with him on top, bound by favors.

Hero downloaded into 'girl'.  For a moment, sh ethinks with joy that she's just nothing, a dreambot.0

Javier Quartes got up that morning, went for a walk in the sea fog to clear his head, and came back to his apartment to gather up his laptop.  He took this down the antique cobblestone ways of his father's father's father's town, past a stone bench worn smooth by time where an ancestor had died with a spear in his  gut during a Moorish slave raid.

At Sebastiano's cafe', he checked the jobs listings, but nearly all of them required he move away, and to Quartes, that meant he might as well amputate the history of centuries, and he would no more do that to get a job than chop off his leg with rusty axe to get a job.  Instead, as he flicked through humor sites, and top political events, sneered at the Amis, and drank his coffee, he came on a site claiming to have the specs for a WNF, a weak force neutralization field.

It was obvious hokum, but the right side of the screen had a pic of a subtly attractive female, one who looked like she might like Javier, but was also respectable, a 'good girl' in other words.  Javier did not believe in such nonsense, but it tugged at his heart all the same despite him being a good feminist, a member of the Socialist Party, and an atheist.  And so he read the words, and they combined a nice mix of authority, appeal to power fantasy, curiousity, and a desire to prove the writer wrong.

And he could walk down the street to a hardware store, and buy the parts for eight francs.  Javier shrugged, almost magnificently, and put aside his market day visit for later.  He ambled down to the hardware store, an ancient place, protected by laws against the ravages of American big business.

To his surprise, he found two others also pestering the shopkeep for similar devices.  He asked one about it, the non-Muslim, non-Arab one, and the man with a broad Texan accent whipped out his PDA, and showed a pic of a webscreen.  The words were a bit different, and the girl, well, she was more country, and  a lot more blonde.

"I would not mind marrying that little honey." The Texan, a vulgar bore, said.  "Get her before the minister, and then have a few Halls. Thats my name, Will Hall."

He held out a hand, so pathetically and innocently friendly that Javier wanted to smack him, but the man was a good head taller than him, and everyone knew how violent Texans were.  So Javier shook the hand with a grimace for a smile.

The man took the hint, and bought his items in more privacy, and perhaps there was some competition because he also bought a screwdriver, and right there at the counter in the early morn, began to assemble the device.  Javier not wanting to be outdone, did likewise.  Mohammad, following them up, did as well, and the other two noticed how he had to look at their two projects to help him get his right.  Javier spent a few minutes wishing that 'dirty immigrant' would go back home, but then got on with his projecting.

The Ami was handy, but he waited, until Javier finished.  Javier immediately flicked on the 'on' switch, but nothing happened.  A quiet 'ahem', and a large finger pointing made Javier want to snarl.  A loose wire not held down by a screw, and that was holding him up.

So he got it done, and then the Texan flicked his on right before he did.

Nothing happened.

And Javier shook his head, feeling stupid for letting himself be deceived by a good line of patter.

And then part of the counter was out of focus, was sliding to the right, and falling out of existence.

Shouts and screams, Javier was not ashamed to admit his was a scream, echoed through the small, crowded narrow and deep store.

"Whoah." The Texan said in his inane way.

A beep from each of their computers caught their attention.  Javier looked at his laptop, and opened it.

The same webpage popped up, which was sort of unusual, but computers were really not Javier's thing.  And he saw that the message had changed.

"Congratulations. You have created a WNF, and/or tested or seen one tested in the nearby vicinity.  If you adjust the second screw here, you will allow the WNF to propagate to any size  you like. (up to planetary diameters.)  You now have the ability to force everyone to respect your opinion."

The words hung on the screen like a doctor saying 'six months to live. I'm afraid the cancer is inoperable.'  And  Javier suddenly found himself frantically scrabbling with that blasted screw, even to the point where he bloodied is fingernail.

"Look." The hardware store owner pointed to his small TV which showed scenes of shock as the White House, Big Ben, and the Kremlin simply vanished as if sliding out of reality.
"Now the Powers That Be will have to listen to the common man.  We can finally gather together, and deal with each other honestly and fairly." Said a young fanatic in a Guy Fawkes mask who suddenly laughed and took off his mask.  "Come and get me FBI, IRS, and Lobelville Valley Library.  I don't fear you anymore.  You need to fear me.  This leads to world peace!"

"Reports are coming in that the French aircraft carrier, the De Gaulle is gone." The announcer said.  Men in suits tried to push onto the stage, but he yelled back at them on live TV.  "I don't have to listen to you guys anymore!  We're free."

"Yes, we are." Said Javier.  He held his device out in front of him.  "We're going to make a better, more rational world."  The other three men stared at him closely as he held the device out in front of him.  "And we might as well start here."

He breathed in deep, and then nodded as if jumping off a cliff.

"You a Christian, Texan redneck cowboy idiot?"
The Texan's face heated a bit, but he merely said very calmly.
"I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and my personal savior."
"Moronic invisible sky fairy bothering..."
"Shut your mouth, you dog. This man may not be a worshipper of Allah, but at least he respects God.  You are merely an atheist, and deserve death."
"I've never liked your kind, Mo.  You come to my country, and try to turn La Belle into one of those stinking cesspools of a country you left..."
"Well, its your government that invited us in, and now you will kneel to Allah."
"Or what?  No, you both, will proclaim that there is no God, and Mohammad is an idiot."
"I can try to compromise with you, but ....I can't say that." The Texan said.
"Die! You pig dog!" Mohammad screamed, pressing the last connection, as he glared at Javier.
"No! I didn't mean..." Javier began to shout, and the wave of disintergration struck him, and ripped him apart in more different pieces than there are words in the English language.  The Texan followed a quarter-second later, and the hardware store owner less than a hundredths of a second after that, and then Mohammad went a full second later.

The wave of disintegration was unleashed, and it sped about the planet.  But even if the three of them had made piece, a very similar scene was being played out over four thousand different cases at the same time all over the globe.  And then the planet shifted sideways, and just fell to pieces.  Soon enough, gravity started clumping it back together again, but that was because it was not shooting off in other directions like the remnants of the Big Bang would have, thus forestalling any planets.  Instead, this here, hung loosely togehther, a dry slurry, almost.

But every human on the planet was dead.

And in the midst of all that slurry, a single biped floated in an air bubble, high in nitrogen, walled off by a forcefield specifically attuned to deflect the breakdown of weak nuclear forces.  The being began to power down the forcefield as the WNF suppression faded in a logarithmic descent curve.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?

"Oh, nothing."

The other entity was not remotely bipedal, nor even especially in the need of air, or food other than a ready connection to the quantum foam to support its quasi-material body.  So enormous was it that its' 'toe' would have rested in the now gone Marianas Trench, while a hand held the Moon.

"And the planet full of Life, of Sentience, of those who Worship the Creator is simply gone, and you did nothing?"

The incredulity was clear, as was the gathering of forces both gravitonic, and tachyonic, and anti-matterial so that when the impact came it would register aas a supernova to an unexperienced civ some lightyears away.

"Um. Sir. Please." The bipedal being spoke quickly.  "I did nothing.  I gave information to the planet, and couched it in such a way as to be persuasive.  I did not disintegrate the planet."

"You merely put a grenade in the hands of a toddler, and stepped back."  The gathering of forces faded, but a deep-seated burning rage remained.

"Um." The bipedal entity thought to object, and then decided not too.  "In any case, this planetary system is uninhappited but for me, and you, sir.  And you can't claim salvage rights on an uninhavited solar system.  Too bad, because just selling off one of those gas giants is going to make me, well pretty well-to-do.  I do have debts.  Gambling you know."

The nebular entity listened to the proud babbling and considered and considered again.

"One day, I will catch you, and then when you are sentenced to death by disintegration for your crimes, I am going to 'accidentally' turn the D-chamber to slow roast.  It will take a good five minutes for you to pass to whatever Hell awaits you."

The liplicking anticipation in the Galatic Watch officer's voice blanched the bipedal entity's green face, and he gave at least a moment's thought to fleeing this galaxy for say the Lesser Magellanic Clouds, but he couldn't, the opportunities were too good here.  And so he merely jumped to the nearest transtellar message board, offering 'Virtually untapped Solar System, a real fixer upper for the right price.'
This message was last edited by the player at 15:30, Thu 26 Mar 2015.

As Manuel Argos and his lady, Elena, future queen of the First Human Empire as it was later called, walked through the trees, she relished the warm, strong hand of her man.  It had hurt her to cast off her fiance', but even he must surely realize, her....her thoughts ended here.

"You are well, girl?" Manuel's voice was rough, harsh, filled with the stubs and twangs of being born next to the gutter, and in the shade of an unnamed spaceport on a nothing planet.  But through will, and cunning, and domination of himself and other men, even Elena's first love, he had thrown a fatal punch at the star pirates who raided Earth.  Hitting them in their own home would force them back on their heals as they dealt with internal insecurities and civil war, and meantime Earth, under Manuel would not be idle.

Instead, he already had in mind the dozens of contracts to build the star fleet with which he would come back to this pirate hell world, and scorch it to bedrock as an example to any who thought to defy his rule.

And it would happen.  He saw it. Elena, his future queen saw it.  Even the schmuck who had worked for him until his girl left him for the better man, back there at the landing field saw it.  For a moment, he wondered what the fellow would do, not that he was very worried.  He had always known this moment was coming, ever since he was ten, and killed one of the pirates from behind by stabbing the man with his own sheath knife.

Manuel Argos would have a dynasty born of a strong woman who had fought alongside him, and then surrendered to his all dominating will.  Manuel turned to the woman, and began to pull at her silken belt tied around her waist.  It was time.

"Ahem."  Manuel spun about, lasblaster in hand, with a reflex born of a dozen battles, and the instincts of a killer cat to face the Sorceror.  Now in the wake of the Commonwealth's crash, and the invasion of the space pirates, and the enslavement of many of Earth's people, a weirdness had fell on Earth.  Some old ways found passionate defenders rise out of nowwhere.  The Greek Orthodox and the Baptists rose strongly, but other religions, some new, some old bits stitched poorly to the new, and some the creation of one brilliant man with a charisma of fire, but nothing to match Manuel's power over men and women.  Such seemed to be the Sorceror, although few knew the doctrines he preached, save for his acolytes.

But still at least a tenth part of the men on the ship asked for his blessing before they went into battle, even a good Christian man accepted such when the Sorceror volunteered to give the blessing of King David's sling to the arm of a lasblaster.  And such were needed because Manuel knew that most men, even desperate hard men, did not make war simply for loot.

And besides, the man could fight, even if he insisted on his archaic long sword that he held even now by the points of the hilt in front of him, blade down.

"My apologies, great lord. I was doing a magic, and I fear I stumbled upon you and the free chosen of Alain."
"Not anymore, Sorceror."
"Oh, has he tossed her aside? I find that shocking, for just yesterday, I prayed with him for the safety of his beloved in the coming battle, the one you led us so ably through."
"You fought well, too Sorceror." The man bowed deeply in reply.
"Thank you, great lord."

It occurred to Manuel that the Sorceror had never called him 'my lord', only 'great lord' or 'mighty captain; or on one particularly grandiloquent occasion before other men 'the hand of Fate'.

"You may go." The words were polite, and even so the tone, but the command was clear.
"Great lord, choose another, please."  Manuel stared in shock.
"No. This is my queen, and I will have her."
"Lady, your true love stands mourning his life, wishing he had died before he was born, even now by the starship. Go to him, beg his forgiveness."
Manuel bristled.  Who was this man to...? But Elena put a hand on his arm, and stood forth.  Her voice was regal, and bright, and keen with scorn.
"No. I and my children's children will be rulers of the galaxy.  He is a worthy enough choice for a peasant girl, but I am to be a queen.  Now get you gone before I ask my husband to be to have you shipped, and your skin flayed from you to make a rug."
Manuel's eyes brightened and he laughed heartily.
"So."
And suddenly Manuel's lasblaster was back in his hand. Some danger was here, he knew not what.
"Choose again, or else."
"Else what?" She cried feeling sudden fear.
"Stop now." Manual snarled, and began to shoot, but found he could not.
"I can't. It is already done." The Sorceror said, and walked away.

And so the first coupling was in that glade under the white leaves, but it was not in joy, but in rage.  And there were many more couplings over the next nine months until at last the couple took off the crowns given them by the bought and paid for sycophants who proclaimed them 'God's blessing' and "Emperor and Empress".

And the aliens and the rebel humans fled before the new built fleets and the savage vengeance of the once slavebait, and now ruthless pursuer, the Earthman.

And Manuel came over, his smile strained, and touched her belly.  He coupled again, but without passion, and later that night, he sought out doctors.  No, his wife was not pregnant, and indeed, she followed all their prescriptions to the letter for causing a pregnancy.  She ate well, slept much, exercised lightly, and took what special herbs and poultices as they thought good without complaint.  Indeed, the doctors said 'she speaks of her love of you, often'.

But it was not enough, and a year later, Manuel took a young blonde to his bed.  But despite efforts, and many others, near a half-dozen beauties of all various kinds, none were found pregnant.  And so, grimacing, Manuel came to the doctors and had himself tested.

The doctors sent the least of them, chosen by lot or so they said, and the unlucky trembling man told his liege lord, the master of five underpopulated planets and four billion humans, that he was sterile.  Worse, his wife was sterile.  The explanation was cut short by a shriek of rage, and a ka-thunk as the man's head left his shoulders and  thumped on the ground.  The Emperor left in a flaming rage.

After that, he cared not to hide his infidelities, and went not to Elena's bed anymore.
Until, one day, leaving a pair of twins, he came to the Sorceror standing in the hallway.  His guards were not nearby, and the only weapon he had other than his fists, and his mind was a small dagger.  Granted, twenty yards down the passage was a hidden armory with weapons suited to him.  Shields that could turn back terrawatts of lasfire, and miniature hand cannons that might better suite a single man rocket fighter waited but twenty yards too far along the pale orange passageway of the Imperial Palace on Earth.

And the Sorceror had his long blade out, and looked no more tired than he had that day in the glade, while the Emperor had gained fifteen pounds, and lost some speed.

"Great emperor." The Sorceror named him, and Manuel wanted to spit.
"Come to taunt me?"
"Yes."
The Sorceror said, and walked away, and while the Emperor tried to follow him, he found he could not, and nor did any guard answer him until the Sorceror was long gone from the lavish grounds of the Imperial Palace.
With that, he sent the Imperial spy network into overdrive, trying to find the Sorceror, to find any data on him.  The only thing they found was that he had appeared twenty years ago on Fairchild's Station around a minor world, without papers or job, but with strange gold coins, depicting wars never fought, and kingdoms never built.  And that he was the same age then, as he was now.

The Emperor's obsession passed on to his now forsaken Queen, who lay, prematurely graying, her mouth bitter, and her eyes dejected in her boudoir where no one but servants came, and not even a lover for she knew her husband's jealousies, and his ruthless logic.  The Queen must be above reproach, period, full stop, or monarchy simply did not work.  It would be like trying to have a constitutional democracy without a constitution, or an airplane without wings.

And then the Sorceror was there.

"This is hardest on you." He said.
But rather than follow that, she asked what was on her husband's mind, his obsessions.
"Where did you come from? What do you want?"
He bowed, a bit surprised.
"You have found loyalty.  Too bad you did not find it earlier, or your children would have sat on the throne."
"What? No! Distract me not. Tempt me not with your talk of children."
"There is no temptation. You shall not  have any.  But, to answer your questions, I come from 'Sideways', and I wish the establishment of a Human Empire."
"Manuel wants that as well."  She protested, her eyes flaming a bit, revealing a bit of her former beauty as she stirred on her padded bench in front of her liar's mirror.
"Yes. Manuel is not wholly wrong.  He could have been a Great Emperor."
"He still is."
"What he builds is built on sand.  He has fire and power of soul, but he builds on sand.  It will fall. "
She got up, walked over to him, and using what remnants of her charm remained, burnt away by cruel time, and crueler experience, asked what could have been.
"He could have chosen a woman from Earth."
"He wanted beauty, regal..."
"Dear, poor woman, you are not the only woman on Earth suited to grace a coin.  Surely you know that."  She bowed her head at the rebuke, knowing that several of her servants, if dressed in good cloth, could easily pass for a queen.
"He wanted a strong woman, tested in war."
"He could have had a thousand beauties, all go forth to war, or to challenge a tall mountain in a race...and it would have been done, and right gladly.  And such a custom would have continued down generation after generation so that his sons would have married strong beauties, willing to dare atomic fire in war and the death pressure of the tallest mountains for marriage to his sons."
He raised a finger as she raised her head.
"No, lady, do not defend him.  Manuel is many things, but a fool he is not.  He knew this, and yet he chose you."
"His love..."
The Sorceror laughed.
"He wanted to rule over Alain, Alain, his righthand man, and my fiance'."
"Your love."
The Queen looked about in haste, and began to grab things.
"I shall go back to him, I shall..."
The Sorceror stepped back, and suddenly he was not there, although his voice held pity.
"He found another woman. True.  And he taught his sons on a backward world of honor, and he taught them off all he learned from the rulership of your husband, so that in time, one of his sons shall sit on the Throne, and the others of his sons shall be dukes of planets and great admirals of fleets, for he has seven sons, and six daughters."
"And she...?"
"She will be known as the Mother of the Empire for a thousand years and more."|
"Then what may I do?"
"Die with your husband, or get ye to a nunnery, woman."

And so the Voice was gone, and the Queen cast down her crown, and gave up her right, and took herself to a far planet with a pleasant home for women above an idyllic valley filled with deer, and squirrel, and the leap of fish in its river, and three moons in its purpling sky.  And here, she lived in some content all the rest of her life.

Later that year, when yet another female of a noble house proceeded to fail him, this time, the tormented beauty lashed out, and blamed him.  So he slew her with his bare hands.  Unfortunately, she was the beloved daughter of the Chief of Imperial Security.  Now, he had no means of getting through the foreign guard, so he merely stirred a few pots, and left them to simmer unattended.

Disruptions, then riots, and then blackouts, and three months later, Manuel Argos, Emperor of Human Space was dragged raving from his throne by common hands, taken out into the street in front of his burning palace, and drawn and quartered by the willing many hands of the crowd who ripped him to pieces.

And then the Sorceror went forth to find Alain, and more importantly Alain's youngest son for a Time of Darkness had come, but soon the True Emperor would arise.

Paul Richards stretched out on the aft deck of the Unknown Seas letting the Carribean island Sun broil away his bruises.  A slight rocking of the yacht, undetectable to most, let him know he had a visitor.  The man would see a sun-bleached curly blonde, in perhaps his thirties, fit, wiry, with a white terry cloth pullover, and peppermint red shorts, with bare feet on top of an ottoman.  What he would not see were the bruises gathered this morning as Paul had taken an assisted tumble down the 99 Steps of Charlotte Amalie, or the pistol held behind his left buttock.

"Ah, Mr. Richards, permission to come aboard." The voice was male, of course as female walking patterns are different, and tentative, and apologetic.  Paul opened his eyes to see a man more suited for a grey suit than board trunks and a Hawaiian massacre of a shirt over his ample frame.  The man was also half-bald.

Paul leaned forward, and gestured to a chair hospitably.  He then reached over, and opened an inbuilt cooler in the yacht's transom.

"Beer, gatorade, or water, sir?"
"I..."
"I don't want to impose, sir, but you look hot.  Maybe got on a plane from New York...no Chicago, this morning."
The man nodded and chose water.  Paul did likewise.  Now sitting up, he waited for the would-be customer to talk.
"My name is Harry, ah Dr. Harry Denson."
"Welcome to the Islands, doctor.  I'm guessing not a surgeon."
Harry looked up, and smiled faintly with his soft lips and slack countenance.
"Second time you've sherlocked me. How?"
"Most every surgeon I've met has been convinced that God had them on #1 on His speedial."
"And I'm not an arrogant so and so.  True enough.  I wade through references in history, and speculation, and just plain self-serving propaganda, and despite that, and well, I think I've got a solid hit..."
"And you didn't want to take this to your dean because..."  Paul Richards liked to find the motives of the treasure hunters who came to him.
The man looked embarrassed.
"Its, ah, related to Atlantis."
Paul burst out laughing, and the man stood, his face rigid.
"I see I've gone to the wrong place, good..."
"Please, Doctor. please, I do not laugh at you, I laugh for you."
It took some more soothing, but eventually Paul got his client to sit down.
"Harry, if I may, you did well.  There is no way any perfectly respectable dean in the Americas, either north or south is going to finance  a trip to look for Atlantis."
"Its not really to Atlantis.  Its to one of the descendant colonies.  See, I found this rod, and a leather rope, very well preserved, and once I wound the rope with its symbols around the rod, I think I got some answers."
Paul noted to himself to have a look at the 'evidence' later.  It was not the first time that an enthusiast had interpreted more into data than was actually there.

The doctor spoke on.  He explained how after Noah's Flood, the one and only Ice Age, a period lasting a few centuries, had grabbed up water from the still steaming oceans, after said water came down in abundance in the cold winters.

"I'm familiar with Antartica.  Even been there, twice.  Not much snow because the air is so dry.  So okay, I'll play."

The doctor nodded a bit worriedly, and pressed on.  So the oceans were more shallow then, what is considered the edge of the continental shelf was in most cases, the shore line.  Thus hundreds of cities were built world wide at the shore line.  And then when the oceans cooled...

"Cooler oceans, less water vapor, less snow..."
":ess clouds to, Mr. Richards.  That means colder winters and hotter summers, which tends to destroy the Great Ice."
"And that leads us to Atlantis sinking, eh?"
"Yes, I believe so.  But many of them went to other lands, and ..."

Paul stood up.

"Doc, it sounds plausible.  I'd like to have you come back tonight, and meet a few of my colleagues, have some fresh salmon or tuna, or whatever is the catch of the day.  We can grill it on the top deck.  Say, seven ish?"
The doctor seemed a bit surprised by the abruptness, but also pleased by the offer, and so he nodded his head, and allowed himself to be bustled off the ship.  And just in time for Blood n' Thunder slipped up alongside Paul's boat.  Over there, a tall man, with large fists, was saying farewell in best Hollywood approved pirate fashion to a large clan of Midwesterners who all looked as if they would be lobster red tommorrow.
After they were gone, Paul called out.
"You know they are going to hate you tonight when the sunburn kicks in."
"Check will be cashed before then."
"And reviews online..."
"Are easily deleted my man, if you got the skillz."  Word around the harbor, and on the nearby small islands of the harbor was that Jim Bowen, master of the BnT, was also on occasion a master of identity theft.
"Why'd  you come over here, Bowen?" Paul stared hard at the other man across twenty feet of water, even as he tied up to the dock that separated them.
"I see you got a Big White Whale, maybe a banker.  I know I can show him a better party time than you can.  Girls, booze...a little of this and a lot of that."
"Bowen you make enough money, why you keep trying to steal my clients?"
"You do plenty well for yourself too.  Coming in here, out of nowhere in your nowwhere yacht with twenty pounds of gold."
Paul spun back to the other man as he had been walking away.
"You're a drugdealer, and now everyone thinks you're big man in the harbor."
Paul knew his story was thin.  An accidental discovery, a yacht built by an old Japanese guy since dead, but gold and confidence spoke very loudly in his favor.  And it did not hurt that a month after he arrived, he sponsored the 21st Annual Lobster Bake.
"I'm not." He said shortly.
"Whatever you are, I'll find it, and pin you to the donkey's butt." Bowen snarled.  Paul smiled to himself.  It was highly unlikely that Bowen had even heard of alternate worlds, of universes spread out in a vast multiverse too large to be counted, but in one of them, Paul had been a near bankrupt boat designer.  Then a traveller between worlds, then a Q-ship commander, and a pirate for Good Queen Mary as she fought the Soviet Socialist Republic of America, and finally here, a treasure hunter with a thin background, and a liking for St. Thomas island.
Paul turned and walked off, noting the sun was going down.  Too bad the nanites in his blood had not had enough solar energy to fully heal him.  In any case, he raised a bottle of water in toast.
"Good Queen Mary. May she long reign."  Then whistling he went down to the pier, and heading to market to buy the daily catch, and alert his pals of a job to do.  Atlantis, hunh?

Paul strode past a family of five, all in 'I'm a Pirate' orange t-shirts, giving the harrassed looking father a small smile. Then Paul flicked his right hand quickly to up and  the left, and the large man stared for a second, and then nodded.
"All right, we go this way." The man said behind Paul as he started to guide his foot-weary troupe uphill toward Sand Dollars, which was a good eatery with a great view of the harbor.

Reddish-orange tile roofs, and white walls held the warmth of the day, and by the time Paul got to Giotti's, he was sweating.  A mug of Old Empirical went well with the faux-Italian accents of the waitstaff, and the Noo Yawk pizza which featured mostly different fishes instead of sausage or pepperoni.  Some tourist traps tried to be authentic, Alponse Frank Maroni Giotti, who had legally changed his name to that from Jeff Majors, indulged in pop culture inauthenticity with a finger tossed kiss, and a too bad accent for even a toddler to believe.

Outside, it was late afternoon, and the Carribbean.  Inside, it was November, late night, and on the seedy side of New York where the only cops around were bent.  From Paul's perspective, the best part was the frigid AC, and so he waited at the bar flirting with the waitresses, and a pair of co-eds come down for bikinis and beaches.

"Paulie, Paulio, my man." Alphonse came over, grabbed Paul by the cheekbones, and looked as if he were going to kiss him, but the act only went so far.  "V is taking my house for all its worth, fit to break the bank, he is."  Vinchezno Lamar was known to most as Lamar, but Paul, one time, in a fit of whimsy had told Alponse, he really liked 'V'.  And Alphonse, sympathetic to a fellow ham's desire to ham it up, now always called him that.  And now half the town called him 'V' as well.

A roar of approval went up from the back, and then some very threatening noises followed by a huge man getting dragged, more shoved since the three men with him could hardly carry him, getting 'taken out back.'  A symphony of thuds and whimpers came over the restaraunts speakers, and then the trio came back in.

"The gaming tables in back are now open to new players." Alphonse said with his best imitation of false friendliness.  He spoiled it by giggling at the end.  Paul stood up.

"Put me on V's tab, and the ladies here too." Paul said.
"I gotcha Paulio, I gotcha. No problema.  Ladies." And he drew a fresh pint for the two of them who flashed bright, blonde smiles at him right before he left.
"What about him?" He heard the cuter of the two saying as he left.
"Oh, its a tragic story.  He was on his yacht, and his wife..." Paul shook his head, wondering what he'd be this time.  A reformed drug smuggler, or a former CIA assassin, or perhaps merely the inventor of Pac-Man; Alphonse had a fertile imagination, and believed no tale was so good that it could not stand some embellishing.

People like him made actual treasure hunting very difficult as they could spin up a veritable sand storm of non-facts to obscure the truth.  It was still uncertain to him whether Blackbeard had ever visited this isle, despite the Blackbeard's stone circle tower, but someone had used that tower, and he had found a rusted in part brass telescope from the 1700's in a hidden shelf in the tower, and then taken a tumble for finding it.  Some pirate had used the tower, just maybe not the most famous of all.

Paul caught up with Lamar at the intersection of the main road and an alley that led to the back of Giotti's.  The man was stuffing his coupons into his waist, and he was still, quite as tall as the first time Paul had met him, in a hidden tunnel of the Great Pyramid.

"You're going to anger the Mob." Paul said.
"Nah, Alphonse loves my act, all my cheating.  I entertain his customers, and in      turn I dget some free lunch coupons, and some beers."  Alphonse did not actually run an illegal table.  Winners got coupons instead.

"Got a job. Go get Christopher, and Mick. K?"
"OK. See ya on the boat..."
"By seven."

Mick leaned back in his chair on the aft deck, and listened intently while the scents of searing tuna kept trying to drag his attention away.  Paul, at last had mercy, and gave him the squid dip and chips he kept for Mick because the man was a walking, talking garbage disposal, near three hundred pounds, about two-twenty of it muscle and bone.

"Good." Mick said, scooping up some dip with a chip, and passing it to an amused Christopher who waved it away.  "This doc's theory, well, it makes sense.  Its good.  Pretty much every Ice Age theory out there is more shot full of holes than a racoon from Christopher's native lands."

"Speak softly when you speak of Appalachia, my friend." Christopher said with a chuckle, pulling his hat back from his face.  His hard-planed face, and his stony eyes did not lie, so much as only cover part of the truth.  He was a mountain boy, born and bred, joined the Navy and found he liked blue water.  He said 'yes, sir', and was a good friend, but there was a hardness to him that came from a land of stony cliffs and trackless forrests.  Now, long since retired, he put his vast knowledge of the sea to Paul's service, and occasionally his enormous knife to good use.

"Right. Anyways, no slur to the Blue Mountains, but that whole business of them being super old never really worked for me.  This doc might have something...."  Mick ended, and then scooped up another tablespoonful of creamy goodness before quaffing some more beer.

The discussion turned technical as to how many gallons fuel they would need, and what sails needed to be repaired, and so on.  During this, the quartet, for the giant
V joined them began to eat some fine tuna steaks, and a side dish of kale and bacon cooked salad considered prices, but one of the unspoken fundamentals of their relationship was that Paul could cover any debt.

And he could. Fifty feet below his ship, in the midst of enough murk, and anchors and garbage as to make searching impossible was a treasure chest filled with a variety of loot, of which the silver and gold bars were the least.  Now such an arrangement might be terribly unsafe, but Paul, well, he knew with the same sense that one knows where one's right hand is, just where the treasure was.  It had moved three inches to the east in the last big blow, but nothing to be worried about.

Still, despite that, the quartet managed to pull in a small profit as treasure hunters, and so they were eager for another go at 'the Stupid Money' as Christopher put it with his hardnees peeking out from behind his chuckle.  And then one by one, in the space of two minutes, they all began to be worried.

It was eight-thirty.

By eight-thirty-two, they were all agreed.

By eight-thirty-five they were borrowing their next slip neighbour's, the Cruising Susquennah, motorbike, and stacking four men on a small bike was an island tradition of some note, even if two of the men were the size of two men themselves, they wobbled on, and hopped off at times as need, but always in a blazing rush.  And by the time, they got to the  hotel where the Doctor was supposed to be staying, the flashing lights of the police were ahead of them.

"Now what?" Christopher spoke.
"I gave a coin to the doc.  I wondered if this might happen."
"And you didn't..."
"Mick. Half a chance the doc would have left the coin somewhere.  Or spent it.  It was one of my cheap dimes."
"The fakies." Mick said, but with doubt in his voice.  He knew something was weird with Paul.  Despite all his logic, he could not pin it down.  Paul merely smiled.
"Afterwards, I realized I had been cheap.  I should have dropped a gold doubloon in his pocket, that he would not lose or spend."
"And..."
"We cut them off at the pass. They're heading out of the harbor.  Or at least the coin is."

And hour later, and not really supplied, they were heading out, ready to engage in some piracy.

The running lights glimmered on in the tropical evening as song and dance competed from several hotspots near the waterline, and from one atop the cliffs where the famous Tower stood.  The masthead light, and the IFF, and identification radio beacon stayed resolutely on until they cleared Hansel, and then Water Island.

"Rig for dark-running." Paul called out to a chorus of 'ayes'.  On the seas, he wanted a chorus response for safety.  And then the Uknown Seas went dark, and even a drop down wobble board, and hanging platters were removed, and carefully stored.  Because the Seas was without downgrades to make it noisier, and more radar bold, stealthy enough to interest the USN.

Onshore, a radar operator looked away to grab a bite of his stale danish, and when glancing back saw that the sailboat had dissappeared which was no big deal.  Even to a twenty million watt radar dome like the one he owned, a sailship that far out, with its sails down was pretty invisible.  He would have been startled to know the Seas was ten miles closer than he thought, and advancing with full sail as it caught the wider swells of the greater sea.

Paul led his troupe through the deepening night, and about five miles off Water Island began to order the dropping of sail.  Ten minutes later, and up ahead, he could see a wide catamaran, heaved too, barely motionless in the water, being smacked about a good bit by the waves.

It was not the Blood and Thunder which perplexed him.  He had expected the other captain, but, well, the man had never stooped to kidnapping before.  Identity theft, smuggling, and maybe a spot of blackmail, but not felony as Paul understood it from Common Law.  He was not sure if it was a 'major felony', or 'greater act', or whatever the term was in this universe for felony.

Two hundred yards away, he ordered a very quiet heave-to, and with eyes fixed to the opposing ship which sat undisturbed but by waves, he invited their opinions.
"Likely drug dealers, waiting to transfer..."
"Still in territorial waters, why risk it....?"

Paul thought, wondering how to make a wise decision.  Then, after a spot of prayer, he weighed the downsides of go or don't go.

"Pistols as back ups." He said, and the crew got the ship ready to move in.  V tossed a hank cord from the bow of the Unknown Seas to the transom of the Party Al Nite, and then gently when the waves agreed, drew the ships together as one.  A quick tie-off by Mick, and they were.

Christopher led off the invasion on the left side of the Party, taking V with him.  Paul took the right side and Mick.  A man came up out of th ecenter hold, and Christopher showed the big knife, and as the man cringed back, slammed him below the ear.  One done.

Paul went further, and found two men smoking cigarrettes and leaning over the crhome rail.  There was no cover, so he drew in a breath, and charged.  Eight feet out, still afraid, he leapt, and hit the first man who was turning at the waist.  An 'oomph', and Paul rode him down, getting in a few hammerstrikes to the face on the way.  When he was up, he Mick was just finishing a sleeper hold.

The other two joined them, and with hand signals, Paul sent Christopher up top to check out the sunbasthing deck.  Christopher came back quickly after popping his head up from the ladder, and shook his head no.  They were clear.

Breathing deeply again, Paul entered the hold of the cabin.  It was a large room, with a table and chairs, a big screen TV, and a bar.  Tied up on a tan marine boat fabric couch was the doctor.  Across from him was a well-to-do South American with a dark, reddish hue, and a  pinstripe mustache above a shirt with geometric shapes of aqua and turquoise and mango.  He turned to face them, drawing his AK-47, but Paul already had him covered with his pistol.  The man read his probable fate in a split second, and carefully removed his hand from the automatic rifle hanging from his chair.

As Mick tied him up, Paul checked on the doctor.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, no, um, well, a bit, they punched me in the nose.  But no bother."  Dr. Denson struggled to sit upright, and Paul and V helped him upright before V produced a knife, and cut him free.

The doc got up, deliberately walked over to the tied up prisoner, and kicked him hard in the shin, which provoked a long string of Spanish.

"You punch like a girl." the doc said.

This provoked an even longer string of insults.  Before it ended, the quintet was leaving the cabin, and exiting to the deck.  Up there, they made their way back, jubilant, but trying to keep professional until they got back to their boat.  Once there, and cut loose, they could contain themselves no longer.

"Avast ye hearties! Ye been pirated!" V roared into the night as the Unknown Seas slipped away with the win.  This brought more cheers, more taunts, and laughter, and a bit of an Irish jig, along with many thank-yous from the doctor who had just been rescued from some rather awful fate.

By morning, they were one hundred thirty miles north of St. Thomas.  The doctor had been questioned, briefly, about his findings, and he had been waiting to be transferred to someone more influential, which worried Paul.  The yacht had been in the ten million range.  If that was the errand boy, Paul did not want to meet the master.

Still, the man had not seemed a hardened thug.  Perhaps this was less of a drug cartel...?

In any case, Paul planned to be in Bermuda to pick up more supplies in three to four days.  Perhaps some tidbit of news might find its way on to the Web by then.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:58, Sun 05 Apr 2015.

Four days later, a half-hour before noon so as to spoof any watches set out at dawn or nightfall, they arrived at Somerset Village.  It was a small, old place, packed with charm and Briticisms, and delightfully free of the burden of local government.  The team and doc pulled in at Sugar Cone beach, and took the dinghy in.

The nearest chandler's shoppe let them stock up, and was willing to take cash.  V and Mick who were buying both thought the Queen's Revenooers would not find out about that sale, and that suited them down to their socks.  Now with water, and numerous other supply items, most especially toilet paper, they toted a small hand-drawn wagon, or more accurately, supervised a young lad who was doing it with more enthusiasm than skill.

If you saw Bermuda as a flying wasp, about to sting, they were almost in the stinger.

A good meal at a local eatery, and some catching up on news led them to realize that their piracy had gone unreported.  Which was not good news.  It just meant they meant to proceed with their plans already.  Paul and the team would have to be ready.

They set sail as the tide went out, and voyaged long into the night to cut any ties of observation from the land to the sea.

The next day, as Christopher was pulling in a ten pound bluefin tuna on a trailing line, the ham radio squawked.

"Knife Guy, Vendetta, Rumsfield, you out there...?"

Paul and Christopher both bolted toward the radio receiver, only Christopher dropping back at the last second as it was not his ship.

"Yah, mon." Paul replied in his broadest Jamaican.

"Nibs looking for ya', and...." The rest was lost to static.  Despite several attempts, the team could not raise Captain Hector Vasquaz of the Triumphant Ressurection again, for it was he, who had four years back given them those nicknames.  Christopher, with his Bowie, was Knife Guy; V for Vendetta, and Paul, owner of the 'Unknown' for the 'known unknown' comment by Secretary Rumsfield.

They puzzled over the message, and why it had cut off until the doctor asked the question as to who could cut off such a message.  It was a naive question.  The only people with the power to do that would be, the USG,  at least in this part of the world.  And suddenly they all knew with sinking stomachs.

"Nibs, no, he said MIBS.  Men in black. The spooks are looking for us."  Christopher said, his eyes turning to the doc, like gun barrels. The doc cringed back, and begged that he did not understand.

"Wait." Paul said after studying the doc some more under the glare of all his team.  The man was nervous, and scared, but did not seem to be lying when he said he did not know.  At Paul's raised hand, the others relaxed their intense scrutiny.

"So?" V asked.

"Well, we're looking for a descendant colony of Atlantis.  Chances are, lots of wealth.  We know the Feds are well, so far past broke that only hyperinflation if they are dumb, or debt forgiveness in a grand jubilee if they are smart..."

Snorts of laughter greeted that notion, and Paul smiled as well.

"Maybe they think they can find the riches of Atlantis, and refi the federal government?"

The others shrugged.  It was plausible.

"But we need to get gone then." V said.

"Aye. Rig for fast running." Paul stood.  In a few minutes, the sail was lowered, and a much larger one raised, this one with peculiar flaps and holes in it.    Other changes, accompanied by a thump, or a bump below the hull occurred.  In all this, there was a set aura of danger, and determination.

"What should I do?" The doc asked, nervously.
"Put on a life vest, and tie yourself down.  If things go sideways, stay with the boat until it settles, then yank the quick release..."
"What?"
The boat shuddered.
"Now doctor." And Paul turned to the helm, and began touching it very gently.  A rock this way, one that way, and then air caught in the great sail.  And for a long second, they were airborne.  But when they came down, it was hard, and teeth all over the boat slammed down on teeth.

Now sweating, Paul began the procedure again.  But this time, the leap airborne was more horizontal, and when they came down it was almost smooth.  And then there was a skissing noise from the hull, and the water seemed further away.

"What?"
"Hydrofoil, doctor.  Now if you don't mind, this is a might tricky..."

And as the boat surged faster, rising fully out of the water to stand alone on its four hydroplanes, the speed rose from thirty, to forty, to fifty, and then held just short of sixty miles per hour.  The whole ship thrummed with suppressed vibration and strain.  It was here that if some timber was about to snap, or work loose to spin across the hull, that it would happen.

Instead the ship went on through the bright day.

 And as the Sun raced across the sky, so did the yacht across the ocean, trying to outrun its pursuers, who had, it was assumed, the benefit of radar, and airplanes.  And so they fled across the face of the Deep.

Each hour took them another fifty miles northward.  They stayed sitting playing cards because the tilt of the boat was so delicate, that a misplaced step might flip the ship.  And meanwhile, Paul held the wheel for hour after hour as he was the only one on te team who could handle the boat as hydrofoil.

But, he kept seeing little flickers at the edge of his vision, and on the radar screen.

In reply to Tadeusz (msg # 154):

They were outpacing their pursuers who had an ever-widening box pattern to patrol, and the uncertainty of perhaps missing them in the vastness of the ocean, but just barely.  They should have left the pursuit in their wake long ago, but it seemed the enemy was prodigously wealthy, and prolific in expenditure.  Which led straight to the conclusion that the doc's ideas were on target, and the enemy was the US Government.

This posed a problem.  Ahead was the aircraft carrier Connestoga, and its dozens of support vessels arranged in a ring formation around it.  Counting all the layers, from one side to the other was nearly two hundred miles.  If he kept on straight, he'd be going right through it.  It was uncertain as to whether the Navy was corrupted, or could be temporarily coopted.

Paul looked at the  swirling winds, closer inland, and sighing, turned coastward a fraction.  In three hundred miles, or about nightfall, they would be reaching the outer edges of hurricane Emma.  That would shield them from searchers, but it might welll kill them all.

About twenty miles from the storm edge, they slacked sail, and dropped back into the water.  The great sail, much larger than the spinnaker, drooped into the water, and it took concentrated effort from nerve frazzled men with an eye on the sky which was rapidly turning green to get it all in, and folded in time.

Soon, they were storm-rigged, but not as another boat might be.  This rig had more holes in its sails than sail material, but each hole could be closed at will within tens of seconds of the command.  Or vice versa, opened to let the ship run bare.

Soon, the chilling breeze caught them, and they lunged out, stalled in a sideways sea, and lunged again.  This time, they did not quite stop, but kept on building speed to a comfortable thirty knots.  It was slower than the hydrofoil, but with the contrary winds, and with the deep keel extended down half again as tall as the mast, they plowed over rising seas.

Soon, they kicked up spray, and were going through the tops of waves.  And then the wind hit with a shriek, and everybody who did not have to be on deck was below.  It was V  and Paul at the wheel trying to steer as the seas became moving hills of green glass.  No rain fell yet, except for an occasional spatter of hail, and they had hardly to manipulate the openers in the main sail, but already V and Paul knew they were in for a long night.

Within the hour, the rain came, warm from the Gulf they had just left, the rains came down in masses, and the hills became moving mountains.  Still they went onward, knowing that in the difficult passage was safety.

"Nobody but morons would follow us out here." V said as one rogue wave caught them amidships and made the whole ship shake and creak.

Paul did not make the expected rejoinder, and V looked about to see him coughing out a lungful of water.  His mouth had been open at the wrong moment.

"Sorry pal." V said.

"No jokes." Paul wheezed, grabbing the wheel again, after double-checking his and V's ropes.

In a few minutes, the winds began to scream.  The day was gone, and radar useless.  If they were so unlucky as to run into the path of a larger ship, they were dead.  No one would be fetching them out of these forty foot waves, amid blinding rain, and against a background of wind that ate words, and made the heart yearn for hiding.

The rest of the night  was a nightmare.  Without the deep, extending keel, and the 'Swirly' sails, so named because the openings swirled open and unfurled as they closed they would have foundered and br.  And so they ran with the wind, which was going north, heading toward Boston.

Wind and wave drove them onward, the ever creaking of the ship playing out in musical counterpoint to the bass thrumming of wind.  For the first time in days, Paul felt relaxed, not being spied  upon.  It was a good feeling.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:19, Wed 15 Apr 2015.

But it would not last, the wind was driving them toward Cape Hatteras.  The state was North Carolina, but more important was that they were headed toward the fabled 'Graveyard of the Atlantic'.

The area was infamous for its deceptive currents and...

The Unbridled Seas shuddered for one heart-sickening second, and then scraped free of the shallow shoal far out in the ocean from sight of land, at least in this storm.  They could be closer than Paul expected, and especially so if he were caught in a current sending them straight into shore.

Tacking to starboard, despite the wincing complaints from the ship, was the only course he could take.  And yet ten minutes later, they scraped botton again, on the deep keel.  The others gathered about, worry on every face, even as they held each other's arms when needed to make sure they themselves or the other fellow did not go overboard in the swells that occasionally cleared the transom, and half-swamped the ship before draining off.

Another ship might have foundered and tipped by now, but this one had a deep keel, and was built ruggedly enough to serve as a warship at need.  If a boat designer from this world were let loose in her for an hour, he would have come back stunned into silence by marvels and by a great resillience of construction.

"We're going to loose the keel if we keep this up." V said in one of the pauses when a man could speak.  But as another began, he halted for the wind had dropped.  Haire was rising on the backs of the necks of every man.

It felt as if they were being told by the atmosphere that a storm was coming, but they were already in the midst of a hurricane.  Still, Paul reached and grabbed his barometer.  It was low, and rapidly falling.  With a dismayed face, he looked up into a deeply green sky.  Tornadoes snaked into and out of existence above them in the overhanging clouds.

"Hang on!"  And he threw the helm over, and closed all the swirly's which had been laying open.  The ship began to run before the storm within the storm, and right toward shore.

"What's happening?" The doc shouted as he climbed out.
"Weather war." Paul said grimly.  "Your enemies play for keeps, doc.  I thought we'd be safe riding the hurricane up to near Boston, and then we'd break free.  Evidently they thought the same, so they unleased a weather maker to take us all to the bottom."

"That's impossible." Said several voices.
"Boys truist me.  I know I do some weird stuff, but I have good reason, and I say I've seen a weather war strike, and you gotta believe me.  A bolt of lightning from that monster they've created will fry this whole boat, kill us, set it on fire..."
"We're heading toward shore, and hopefully between the barriers, and hide on the lee   side."

But it would not last, the wind was driving them toward Cape Hatteras.  The state was North Carolina, but more important was that they were headed toward the fabled 'Graveyard of the Atlantic'.

The area was infamous for its deceptive currents and...

The Unbridled Seas shuddered for one heart-sickening second, and then scraped free of the shallow shoal far out in the ocean from sight of land, at least in this storm.  They could be closer than Paul expected, and especially so if he were caught in a current sending them straight into shore.

Tacking to starboard, despite the wincing complaints from the ship, was the only course he could take.  And yet ten minutes later, they scraped botton again, on the deep keel.  The others gathered about, worry on every face, even as they held each other's arms when needed to make sure they themselves or the other fellow did not go overboard in the swells that occasionally cleared the transom, and half-swamped the ship before draining off.

Another ship might have foundered and tipped by now, but this one had a deep keel, and was built ruggedly enough to serve as a warship at need.  If a boat designer from this world were let loose in her for an hour, he would have come back stunned into silence by marvels and by a great resillience of construction.

"We're going to loose the keel if we keep this up." V said in one of the pauses when a man could speak.  But as another began, he halted for the wind had dropped.  Haire was rising on the backs of the necks of every man.

It felt as if they were being told by the atmosphere that a storm was coming, but they were already in the midst of a hurricane.  Still, Paul reached and grabbed his barometer.  It was low, and rapidly falling.  With a dismayed face, he looked up into a deeply green sky.  Tornadoes snaked into and out of existence above them in the overhanging clouds.

"Hang on!"  And he threw the helm over, and closed all the swirly's which had been laying open.  The ship began to run before the storm within the storm, and right toward shore.

"What's happening?" The doc shouted as he climbed out.
"Weather war." Paul said grimly.  "Your enemies play for keeps, doc.  I thought we'd be safe riding the hurricane up to near Boston, and then we'd break free.  Evidently they thought the same, so they unleased a weather maker to take us all to the bottom."

"That's impossible." Said several voices.
"Boys truist me.  I know I do some weird stuff, but I have good reason, and I say I've seen a weather war strike, and you gotta believe me.  A bolt of lightning from that monster they've created will fry this whole boat, kill us, set it on fire..."
"We're heading toward shore, and hopefully between the barriers, and hide on the lee   side."

They tied themselves in, doubled up on lifejackets, and in their individual ways made ready to die.  All except for Paul for he had died several times already, and always came back.  But if he did, it would be elsewhen, and he'd never know whether the descendants of Atlantis had settled in Greenland during the so-called Ice Age.  He would carry that failure forever, just like he still remembered the enemy sinking of an innocent tramp freighter by the American communists.

The Mary Piper's crew had begged him to put on speed, and he had, just enough to arrive five minutes after the sharks ate the last of the crew.  Just long enough to spot the machine gunned liferafts, and just enough to take a vengeance that still woke him in nightmares once a year.  Deliberately ordering 'no quarter' and burning an enemy ship to the water was an awful thing, but it had stopped the terror sinking of independent freighters.

Prayers went up, the mariner's prayer was quoted, so was Psalms 23, and another man held the necklace that held the photo of his lost True Love, and a doc frantically tried to figure out a way to escape impending doom.  And then the ship shot through between the barrier islands.  The blind gamble had paid off, and Paul tacked them into not calm, but less insane waters on the lee side of the barrier island.

Past them floated the second story of a beach house, blown off an island, its foot thick support poles snapped.  V quickly looked it over, checking for signs of life, and found none.  In a way he was relieved, because rescuing someone from such an impromptu ship in twenty feet waves would have been nearly impossible.  And even as he thought that, the 'weather war' caught up to them, and the waves jumped ten more feet in a second.

And with that, they knew they were all dead.

"Rig for Dive 2. Dive 2." Paul yelled using a loudspeaker, blaring them out of the emotional shock that had them frozen.  And sails came down, and doors were slammed shut in the interior, and face masks donned.

Dive 2 had been one of their drills, but not explained.  It made the interior of the ship storm tight, and got everyone in SCUBA.  And then water came up out of holes in the bottom as Paul deliberately scuttled the craft.

"Stay!" He shouted from outside, barely hanging on, even with the aid of a strap, doing the last maneuver with one hand while both feet flew in the air, pressed by an enormous wind, even as his ears popped.  Whoever was doing this was terrified, or a complete reckless idiot.  A Level 7 hurricane could break off skyscrapers.  Unleashing this type of destructive force was not even justified by a rogue nuke, let alone a sailboat with five guys on board going treasure hunting.

And then as the boat went under, the band snapped, and Paul spiralled free of his beloved boat, tossed out into the merciless wind.

Tossed skyward in a two hundred mile per hour plus wind, one thought followed another thought quickly.  First was 'owwww, my stomach'.  If you've ever felt the pain from the initial drop of a roller coaster, well, he had accelerated more than twice as fast.  It hurt.

The second thought was of the simple certainty of death.  Ironically, this freed his mind of terror.  For some, the last moments on Earth are a frozen intensity where they are given the last chance to make things right with the Creator, and they find themselves unwilling to move.  But for Paul, who had already given his sword to the Master of Heavens and Earths, that was not a problem.  He opened his eyes, and saw that he was arcing upward at a fifteen degree angle, feet first.

Uncertain of his play, and already far out of sight of the ground, and getting closer to the mini-tornadoes, which at EF3 or so were not mini at all, except in comparison to a hurricane, he chose to increase his angle of attack.  For he was being pulled toward the tornadoes.  A battered wreck of a piano flew past him on the right, and was sucked into the first of the four wobbling, snaky vortexi.

Not wanting that, he held out his arms, hoping for more lift, for the Bernoulli Effect to hick in as he held his arms out, palms flat.  The effect, was the principle by which planes flew.  The equal pressure of air was split by the wing, and the greater curvature on the top of the wing, spread that air out, thus making a region of high pressure under the wing, and one of lower pressure above the wing.  Consequently the wing, and the plane it was attached to, rose.

But planes were made of aluminum, or even steel, not muscle and bone.  And even they could have wings ripped off.  A sudden gust, and a flaring pain that illuminated his insides like a flash bulb, and his right shoulder was dislocated.  He tumbled, helpless, tightening in his arms, hoping, sparing a moment to pray that he had risen far enough.

And then he saw the first and the second of the vortexi below him, and their internal rising column bore him even further up as his shoulder settled down to a steady throbbing.

And there above the four tornadoes, he ran into something.  First the air stiffened, then it became the consistency of peanut butter, and finally he halted.  Somehow, the four tornadoes were sucking the energy of the hurricane into them, and sending it skyward.  The result was air that was creamy and thick, and not at all breathable.

Desperate, he shoved, then swam back out into the storm.  And there he fell, past the tornadoes, and full length, and plunging directly downward.  Not sure what else to do, he took a large gulp of air, and angled his body so that it flew back toward the center line of the four tornadoes.  And the air stiffened, and held him, his legs squirming in the air, a thousand feet high, with nothing under him, and no motor or propeller holding him.

But lack of air got him again, and he pushed out, and fell, and repeated the cycle.  As he did so he realized that the enemy was even more formidable than he expected.  Weather control is not easy.  Weather control to jump a hurricane up two levels to a Level 7 hurricane would require...Frankly, he was not sure.  In none of the universes he had been too had they this level of tech.

He assumed it would require fusion reactors, or solar power sattellites, or perhaps antimatter reactors.  But to then take the energy out of a storm, that was so far above his head that he could not even consider it.  Just how did you turn off a hurricane, if  you were not Superman?  Or the Archangel Raphael?

And thus he descended, until suddenly fifty feet above the water, the 'peanut butter effect' ended.  But over him, it was still calm, so he hit the water hard, and stingingly.  Salt water got up his nose, but soon he was thrashing about on the surface with only one good arm, and two legs.

Back-paddling, with one bad arm draping in the water, and the other helping to steer, Paul made his way shoreward under the oddly stilled sky, and the nearly flat waves.  Above him, something very close to a miracle was happening, or so it would seem to the uninformed.  However, there was no suspension of natural law, just a technology beyond, so far beyond this planet as to seem like magic.

Getting closer, Paul flipped over, and caught his feet in the thick slurry of sand.  The granules scraped pleasantly at his feet, even as the water gave way with utmost reluctance about his tired body. Plodding forward, wishing only to collapse, he pressed on, and even as he rose above the waves, he felt resistance change for gravity, and it made no easier the transit until finally he was on the wet sand, liberally dotted with broken boards, branches, and seaweed, the wrack of the mighty hurricane still not passed.

Once upon the shore, he dropped for the space of thirty seconds, and then acted before he could think better of it.  He flung himself sideways on his arm, and for a space of time that hung on longer than it should, he wondered if he had put enough force into it, and would have to do it again, at thrice the hurt.  But then his shoulder gave, and relief came.  His arm was back in its socket.

Forcing himself back to his feet, he made his way back down the beach.  Twenty minutes later, the rains came.  Then winds, then hail, and head tilted down, occasionally glancing at the sea he plodded on.  A quick duck warded him from a tree branch twenty feet long and seven inches through that sailed down the beach at five feet  and seventy miles an hour.

And pummelled by hail, half-blinded by rain, he saw the flickering glimmer of an aluminum mast, and the red flag with blue ball, a long triangle, that marked his ships sinking point.  With a grin, he fell to the ground, and made words of praise to match the gratitude in his heart.

A few minutes later, blasted by rain on the back of his soaked head, he rose, and walked into the water.  Each slow step brought another deep breath.  Around him waves rose and fell, spattered in circles, and tossed up in quarter-spheres by plunging raindrops and hailstones.  Once, at his waist, he took a ten of seconds to mark the mast, and then he dove underwater.

Below, the water swirled, and sand swept up, so he went deeper along the descending curve of  the underwater beach.  And there ahead of him, was his boat.  He stroked toward it strongly, knowing his air was running out.  A brieft touch on the hull, and then he rose to a wind-screaming madness.  In that mass of air mixed with water, he caught half a breath, and counted himsel lucky.

He sank, but the current had already grabbed at him, and he was being pushed past the boat, with it but five feet below him.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:40, Tue 28 Apr 2015.

Somehow, with desperate need, he pushed himself past what he thought a man could do.  And his fingers clamped on to the railing on the transom.  From there, he worked his way forward, until he came to the hidden plate, which he popped up, and with the last of his endurance shoved the button underneath.

And with that, things went black.

Sputtering, drowning, needing air,  he fought up, to have hands, many hands help, and concerned voices.  And then with watering eyes, he saw his friends about him on the still sloshy aftmost deck of the Unknown Seas.

"Breathe, pal, breathe." V intoned.
"Come on, Paul, you can do this." Another charming voice cheered him, and he gave a ragged thumbs up at that.  Within a few minutes, his throat and chest raw, but he was standing and still alive, he gave the finishing orders which finalized the refloating of his ship.  And then before the still madness in the sky could be exchanged for the fury of the hurricane, he lifted all sails in order to catch the faintest flutter of a land breeze which glided them out away from shore.  Here they continued even as the hurricane came on, but the outer barrier islands caught most of the strength, and perhaps those who held such awesome control over the hurricane had overindulged in pulling back, for it seemed as if the weather was not so fierce.  Still, many hours of fierce war with the sea remained.

And at the end, they could say, not that they won, but that they survived for the sea was still there, still unconquered.  But as dawn rose, they floated past Boston, and kept on going with the inexperienced doctor as their guard while they all took the sleep they needed.

It was another twelve hours before the first of them were up, and beginning to assess the storm damage.  But since the Seas had been built to go for months at a time, in places where there might not be civilization, or even opposable thumbs, they had an ample supply of refurbishments on board.  Or as one beach bimbo had noted, there was not much party space aboard the Seas.  And indeed, while there was enough space for five men to live, and in comfort, it was not a suitable craft, despite its size for a two hundred person party.

Their next stop with strong, cool breezes pushing them across the North Atlantic was, with tacking, and the different distances on this Earth, about 1300 miles.  That two weeks offered them plenty of time to get the Unbridled Seas back ain ship-shape.  Lacking anything better to do, the history professor taught them how to play some Viking gambling games which whiled away one day.  For Paul, he enjoyed the quiet cameraderie, and the cool breeze in his face as they sluiced through deep ocean blue.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:56, Tue 05 May 2015.

Sleeping, reading, fishing, and working on their tans occupied most of the time.  It was a needed respite from the fury of the 'oddest hurricane in the century' and a 'precursor to global warming, err climate change.'
Meanwhile, the ocean slipped past their hull, and they dug deeper into the stores, finding some oddities which Paul passed off as novelties 'Spaceman's Daily Calorie Requirement Meal' with a factory supposedly located on Titan provoked more than a few laughs.  Paul was awarded the 'Strange Humor Award', and took it with good grace as they made him march about the ship giving a speech on the necessity of humor.  It had them laughing in spurts for the rest of the day, but by then, even this tough crew was getting a bit seaworn, and and so three days later, when they pulled for St. Johns, and its harbor, it was with a sense of great relief.

St. Johns was a far quieter harbor than their last with sturdier buildings tightly constructed to hold out the howling northern storms that blew straight in off the north Atlantic.  There was less life here, but since that meant less spiders, no one was particularly unhappy about that.  And it was picturesque, and sweet, a bit quaint, and the downtown were often colored brightly.  And looming over it all, atop the hill was the Basillica of St. John the Apostle, an imposing two-tower to the sea, square-bodied emphatic statement of a building.

They stopped over for two days, recovering, fixing what could not be fixed on the water, restocking, and then at the last, Paul gathered them.

"Friends. This is the go-no-go point. I've talked with the professor already, and he agrees. This is more than he bargained for, and more than you could be reasonably expected to risk.  He's willing to go on, but he will let out anyone with no shame who wants out.  And I say, if most of you want out, we will stop here."

"I..." V began.

"Let me continue."  V nodded.  "You know I'm....odd.  I'm not going into details, but yeah, I'm definitely not your normal guy.  So, when I see that hurricane jump up and down....well, the energy level required.....our enemies should have been searching for us with atomic powered cars with forceshields, flying cars to knife through a hurricane."

"That's impossible."

Paul shook his head.

"Easier. A lot easier than what was done with the hurricane.  All that would be required would be fusion, or solar power satellites, the latter you people on this world could build."

That caused a few raised eyebrows.

"And batteries about fifty times more efficient than you have.  Ten times would get you flying cars.  Fifty would bget you ones that can defy hurricanes."  He paused and looked down at his hands.

"What you saw is more on par with building an interstellar colony ship for ten thousand people and shoving it into hyperdrive."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Unless you consider the professor's theory.  Descendcants of Atlantis settled all over, as the Ice Centuries waters held in the European Glacier and the North Am Glacier melted, and the Sea Peoples movement....well someone had a device from Atlantis.  Our foes don't know that much, but they know how to push a button."

"Push a button, start a hurricane?!?  Tell me that's a joke."

"You were there, pal. What do you think?"

"Yeah. Too much to take in. I need a drink." He stomped off.

"That's a good place to stop. " Paul said holding up his hand.  "Think about it."

Later, as the sun sank over the western hills, and the yellow, and blue, and green buildings began to glow with a twilight shimmer, with two girls, one for each arm, and they towing him along toward 'the best eatery south for five hundred miles in any direction' he admitted to himself that he did not want to leave this world.  His next could be some place drastically unpleasant, with no laughing coeds in miniskirts and high heels.  It might be filled with war and devastation, or perhaps not even a single human.  Who knew what wonders and terrors the Multiverse held for him and the Unbridled Seas?  But, he would go forward into the adventure anyways, and so decided, he turned his attention to Susan and Kim, and the 'best tuna steak you've ever had'.

Uncertain what he'd see the next morning, he walked back up the dock, and saw all his crew sitting on the aft deck drinking coffee, along with the professor.  They offered him a cup, and without mentioning it, talk turned to the weather conditions to be expected further north as they made the jump to Greenland.  And the fun that awavited them with icebergs.

And so they set north and east toward the land that once had been Green, but was now covered by a mass of ice so much so that it probably was two islands with a giant overcap of ice and snow joining them.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:23, Thu 07 May 2015.

The lands they skirted were iced, or occasionally dappled with brightly colored houses, separated also with rocks skimming the surface of their underground world, and in the background, the mountains often turned form green to  form of ice.  Several ice berglets slapped the hull, but the deep keel was up, and the catamaran gave easily before the ice, not seeking dominance, but to rebound, and come again from a different angle.  This choppy, slappy helm made this passage the roughest for the passengers, but the beauties of great icebergs that dwarfed the sailboat yacht more than made up for that, in their minds.

After three days of coastal riding, the professor shouted out in glee.

"There it is!"  What he pointed at was a seaweed draped perhaps column of rocks jutting out of the waves, fifty yeards from shore."
"What is it?
Where's the face?"
"It's hig tide ow.  But that is a column hed by a hand.  And near it is a face of stone in shallow waters, which I only noticed when my facial recognition software tried to function."

The professor cast his mind backwards.

His eyes were weary from a long day, and his mother's predictions of his eyesight going if he kept reading comics under the covers were a few decades later proving to be true.  He switched on the second desk lamp, rather than hit the lights for the whole floor of the history building.  Inefficient design, he grumped for the hundredth time.

His theory had abundant support, but he had been explicitly told by the dean that they did not want to hear anymore about underwater cities at the edge of the continental shelf, just short of the drop to the abyss, in Japan, or Egypt, or worse yet, off Spain, which is where he theorized based on some other predecessor's identical theories that Atlantis lay.

After Noah's Flood, the heated water of the oceans had made one hundred percent cloud cover the norm for centuries.  The result was warm winters, cool summers, and a lot of water in the air, the perfect, and indeed only logical explanation for the Ice Age that he had ever heard of, and he had studied dozens intensively, and reviewed dozens more.

Without water in the air, all that cold would do was cold.  The interior of the Antartic was dreadfully cold, but in the high interior it could get as low as two inches per year, which was a decent week in Michigan.

Hot summers would melt the forming Great Ice.  Too cold winters would lock up the water.  A very warm ocean, after the volcanoes spewed out the water, aided in evaporation.

Eventually, the oceans cooled, and the skies cleared, and cold winters and hot summers acted upon the Great Ice that covered Europe and North America.  That ice melted, the oceans rose, and Atlantis and its many sisters were slowly flooded, and the previously unexplained movement of the Sea Peoples was now wxplained, including the thousand ship armada that invaded Egypt round about 3500 B.C..
This message was last edited by the player at 16:20, Fri 08 May 2015.

The Unknown Seas hooked up to the seaweed covered hand reaching out of the water.  From a distance, it looked box-like, but closer you could see this was an artifact of the hanging shrouds of kelp.  And even as they pulled themselves in, they could smell the change in the water.

That plus the heavy kelp shusshing against the hull let them know that there was an underwater steam vent below.  Otherwise, the near artic waters about here would not support the thickness of kelp that bobbed in the waves about them.

"Here." The professor said.  And he pointed to a spot twenty feet beyond the hand.  "At low tide, my facial recognition software that I had been running in the background on another project, pinged me.  At first I thought it was bonkers, and then that I was.  But, my computer saw what I was too ideologically blinded by constant brainwashing to see.  There was a face turned toward Heaven visible at low tide."

"Two more hours. V, break out the sardines and the hard cheese.  Also, you lot, the picnic blanket and the crackers.  Its warm enough here to eat out, which is a first for nearly a week."

Granted it was a warm spot, but the moving air sucked off the heat quickly.  Still, the crew enjoyed their minor respite from frigid winds of the North Atlantic.  And after that, and a leisurely clean up, it was only a few more minutes until the face of the statue was made clear as the waves sunk from around her face.

And it was clearly a her.  She looked as if she were exalting to Heaven.  And then the top of a tablet emerged, probably held by her right arm, and it was more magfnificent than even that great statue, for this statue was nearly as old as Humanity.  And on the top of the statue were words that clearly referred to a city, and a map to follow it, buit then the waves started to come up.

Rapidly, Paul got out the wet suit while the rest of his team got together the equipment for a SCUBA dive.  V helped him scoot on the suit, which was tight enough to be unpleasant to a man used to free-flowing garments like Paul, who preferred linen shorts and loose button ups over t-shirts to formal wear, and certainly not form-fitting spandex.

"This is tropical weight neophrene, Paul." V said worriedly.  The thickness of wet suits can vary with 3mm, 5mm, and 7mm thicknesses.  The thicker the better in cold water, and Paul's was suited for the Carribean, and only three millimeters thick.  And there were baby icebergs visible from the ship's deck.

Paul nodded, and V shrugged, giving him a knife to belt on to the weight belt.  Paul checked the quick release on the weight belt as he always did, and rebuckled with help even as a single aluminum tank went over his shoulders.   A regulator was stuffed into his mouth, and he took a breath even as the air pressurizer on board was turned off.  The air was nice and fresh, just having been smushed together recently.  Seeing as he did not dive that often, there was no need to carry a full tank at all times so he didn't.

With his newly gloved hands, he guided the mask on, said a prayer, and flipped backward over the side.  He came up quick, and gave the waiting crew a reassuring thumbs up before descending back into the water.  It churned about him, by turns bone-aching cold, and almost warm.

Not wanting to stay long enough to turn into Steve Rogers, he fliked his light on.....

The sworls of current brought not only alternating surges of soothing warmth, and bone-chilling cold, but also disguising debris, floating mud, fronds of kelp, and tiny sea dragons which all got in the way of reading the tablet held by the statue.  But he forged ahead, and took what pictures he could.  Getting closer, he brushed back a great, massive, blooming outward cloud that rolled, and billowed beneath the surface of the water.

Unable to see, he took pictures as many as he could until he almost cracked the camera n teh statue.  Seeing as he was drifting, he made his way up,only to bang his head against the hull.  This got some shouts for him to say his name, and grim thoughts as his plan had not involved barnacle bouncing.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:56, Wed 13 May 2015.

Once fully aware, Paul gave over the digital camera which was hard linked to a ship laptop after a minute of finagling, trying to find the right port for the right connector.
"Oh, for squishy ports." Paul murmured.  The universal ports of another timeline were a joy to work with, tis not so much.

Once the photos were uploaded, and the irellevant ones taken out, they began the process of trying to fit them together, of noting similarities very much like that of a jig saw, wither in work, or color, or shape of a peculiar seaweed.

Once they were done, the professor took it away for an hour to translate when he came back this is what he said it said.

"I, Bestia, daughter of the starborn and daughter of Eve, at my husband's command, the good lord Heran, did take leave of my somn, Wotan, and prepare a land for us when the seas should cover our old lands.  Amd tp set a seal upon this deed, as commanded by my lord husband, I have caused this statue to be erected."

"Who's Bestia..?:"

"Daughter of a frot giant, and mother of Odin One-Eye, according to the Asatru.  According to this, the daughter of a Nephilim who had a child Wotan, and prsumably a grand-child
Thor."

"I wonder if this is Valhalla" One muttered, and th eidea ws ingrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

"It is.' A cold, guttural voice spoke from behind them.  They all spun, some seekgn coer, some just going for a gun that the previously hidden adversary was overwhelmed, and soon restrained.

He wore a thick wetsuit, and carried an AK-47 for above water work, once you drained its barrel dry enough to fire.  On his back was a pressure launched dual harpoon.  Dependent upon his waist's weightbelt
, a good ten inch long working knife with a saw back edge.

"Move. Evasive pattern.'

The Seas leapt about, and dropped one boarder back over the ranssom with a wail.  Cutting and jigging, they saw a double set of harpoon punch the main sail, and tear a foot wide hole in it, which spilled out enough air to cost them two nautical miles per hour.

But they left the undersea pirates behind, and coursed forward into a berg strewn cove.  Above it, at the head, a mountain, half granite, and half frosting brooded.  They made for it, and at its base, was a long, rectangular block of concrete, a submarine pen.  If the enemy had need of reaching out, and influencing things, and a need for a hidden base, a submarine was a useful option.  And the whole thing was under an awning of giant gray timbers, and tin roofing that had been splashed, but not painted with whitewash.

Paul was willing to be that the whitewash was in a pattern, precisely designed to look accidental.  That it was the sort of thing that would make a satellite blink, and say 'nothing' there.

Next to that was a pier, going fifty feet into the water, and currently mast-high, which meant the tides must be something here, or the pier was designed for supertankers.  They docked by wrappping a line about a pier pole, dropping bumpers, and tightenng themselves in with a stanchion.

A test yank of a metal ladder, and it seemed sound so that they all quickly ascended, one after the other to the pier top where the sun shone bright, and the wind was on occasion nippy.  The hike in sunlight turned dim as they passed from pier to giant shelf porch blasted into the rock.  At the far end was a metal door, more sturdy than it looked, but quite amenable to a lock pick.

And then a rogue wave came, higher than the pier, and smashed down uon them, leaving them senseless to be gathered up by the security tean,
This message was last edited by the player at 18:26, Sun 24 May 2015.

Ankles chained painfully, and wrists constrained to the top of a table by triple strength bungee cords wound about the heavy wooden tables, the five of them woke to a mocking voice that was tinged with reluctant respect.

"We've been through your ship, Paul. May I call you Paul, my name is Oberlan?"  The tall, skinny man with the elegant three piece suit stood in a rough-hewn room as if he owned the place. "A most remarkable ship, the Unbridled Seas.  Some devices in there, if my engineers are correct that you could sell for an easy ten million, and yet you kept a secret, which tells me that maybe you're not the Enemy."

"Free us, and we can talk about it." Paul said with a charming smile. Oberlan chuckled.

"You survived a Level 7 hurricane, in a sailboat."
"Yacht." V replied.
"Sail Yacht." Oberlan agreed equably.  "And as such I have no clue as to what your limits are, or what skills, occult, or weird, or bleeding edge technological you may have.  We've dealt with bersarks who could charge a man while holding in their intestines with the other hand, and with ninja, who, well, we finally found the last of them when he died of old age.  A dedicated man is capable of astonishing things.  I don't want to see what havoc you five can work."

"You have the descendants of Atlantis, and the precursors of the Nordic race, their history hidden up here, away from the world." The professor said, almost snarling.
"Indeed we do, professor. We've followed your work with some interest.  We'd be happy to release you..."
The professor looked suspicious.
"Stories condition us to think of Heroic Last Stands, but in truth, its almost always more practical to get the man to cooperate.   A good laboratory, a library full of books and scrolls rescued from the Library of Alexandria and Nero's Burning of Rome as well as works from other centuries, and even a few of the more insightful moderns are available.  Personally, I love it in there on a Saturday morning."
"But I would not be able to peer review wellmy work, nor expose my work to the larger world, or lecture students at colleges..."
"True, but...none of them are your peers.  I speak no flattering words, professor.  I've read the dozen so called greats of Modern History are anything but.  Most of them are plagiarizing simpletons.  Why would you care what your inferiors think?"

All at the table could see the professor swell his chest, and straighten up his head.

"I'll go and fetch some food and drink.  No need to make this more uncomfortable than it has to be."  And Oberlan walked out while Paul muttered, 'smooth devil'.





/
This message was last edited by the player at 15:31, Tue 26 May 2015.

In reply to Tadeusz (msg # 172):

Paul quickly reexamined the bungee cords.  As he thought, even with brother helping brother, they were too cleverly twined.  The chains on the ankles were less of a problem, and with some discusion, and fancy footwork, all were freed.

"Surge, stealth, on three."  The men nodded, and began to mouth out words, counting down, and at the same moment, they all pushed down.  The table creaked, and the proffessor gasped.  Another quick count, and the table shattered lengthwide.

"How?" Gaped the proffesor.

"A horse by itself can pull, say ten thousand pounds.  With two, the number rises to twenty four, and go on, and have them work together, as one, and the number rises to thirty six thousand. "

V smiles. "We average about three hundred pounds. Work together, and we hit near seven thousand pounds."

They freed themselves, and armed themselves as best as they could, until they all stood at the door, ready to go.

In reply to Tadeusz (msg # 172):

Paul quickly reexamined the bungee cords.  As he thought, even with brother helping brother, they were too cleverly twined.  The chains on the ankles were less of a problem, and with some discusion, and fancy footwork, all were freed.

"Surge, stealth, on three."  The men nodded, and began to mouth out words, counting down, and at the same moment, they all pushed down.  The table creaked, and the proffessor gasped.  Another quick count, and the table shattered lengthwide.

"How?" Gaped the proffesor.

"A horse by itself can pull, say ten thousand pounds.  With two, the number rises to twenty four, and go on, and have them work together, as one, and the number rises to thirty six thousand. "

V smiles. "We average about three hundred pounds. Work together, and we hit near seven thousand pounds."

They freed themselves, and armed themselves as best as they could, until they all stood at the door, ready to go.

A quick check, and it was locked.  The metal framed door looked too solid, so three of them grabbed up a half of a very solid table, and counted down.

Slam.
SLAM.

The door sprang open.

Beyond a man scattered, which told them all something.  The bosses were frightened of their workers having guns.  The quintet bolted out, and down the stairs and out into the lobby.  A women tried to block their way, but one casual off-hand swing left her on the ground, and them free.

They passed her, bleeding lip, and snarling and spitting accusations, and went out into the peculiar light.  A modern, for the Thirties' building lay behind them, a three story block, but all about them were the giant ruins of a post-Atlantaen civilization.

The same techniques later used by the Pyramid Builders and the authors of Stonehenge were in evidence all about them.  But here, they were not much despoiled by the passing of time, and the crudities of barbarian invaders.  For far above them, a skylight, like one created by the Archangel Raphael glowed faint blue as light shimmered through the glacier overcap, a thousand feet above their reverent heads.

"Why hide this?" Paul muttered.
"I'll show you." Oberlan spoke from their left, putting up his pistol.  "I would have anyways, but ....you were in a rush."

The quintet spun about, saw him, dismissed him, and looked about for other attackers.  Oberlan waved them back, and even consented, with ill grace to V stealing his pistol.
Then he gestured them on, and the five of them followed their oddly calm guard.

A block of wonders, of stone blocks twenty yards wide, and Oberlan smiled.

"We think the Earth originally had some sort of anti-gravity molecules, which were mined, and used, and eventually in the passage of time, escaped, and went to space.  So far, despite financing the Hubble, my people haven't found it."  He chuckled at their expressions.  "No, the Hubble was never about learning the Origin of the Universe."

"And that got passed into myth as flying carpets." Paul ventured.
"A good hypotheses, sir, but not even myth, sir.  I've seen one rather tattered proto Persian design that could float a good foot above the ground."
"Could we...?" Paul asked with some curiosity, while the others looked on eagerly.
Oberlan smiled sympathetically.
"I truly wish you could.  But our Council determined that it was the last of its kind, and we had to run experiments on it, or just watch it fade away on its own."
"That's a hard choice." Paul said as they came to a corner, and a stone garden beyond it.
"Indeed. For what little it's worth, I was in favor of keeping it as long as possible in hope of some future genius being born."

And here Oberlan waved a hand.
"And if you haven't figured it out already. Here is our problem."

The five of them began walking into the Stone Garden.  It had trees that looked almost edible, and a realism and tenderness of emotion that made a fern by a creek worthy of a tear from a tough man.
"This is..."
"Yes, our ancestors were greater men than we are." Oberlan said, his voice curiously flat as he moved into the Garden.
And then the professor called out to Paul and the others.

And the quintet came upon a man, under a tree.  He was shorter than any of them, but his build was perfect.  His eyes were fearless, but full of wit and knowledge.  And he looked so real, so powerful that he might spring to life at any moment.

"Supposedly this is a close approximation to how he actually looked.  Given that the sculptor was going on hearsay going back several generations. Remarkable work, isn't it."  And all five felt themselves entranced, looking on it.

But then they saw, further back, half hid by the tree fronds, a statue of a woman.  And despite her short height, she was all that and more.  She was the type of woman to have a man wake up in the middle of the night, sweating. To have him turn around a thousand times thinking he had seen her from the cornerof his eye.

And in her hand was a pear, with a chunk bit out of it.

Oberlan took the stone pear out of her hand as the others turned to him, demanding explanations by the incredulous looks in their eyes.

"Yes, my friends, this is a work by an unknown except for his name in the scrolls of this city.  And it shows the Garden of Eden, and the Fall of Mankind.  But a noble Fall all the same."

"That..." Paul stuggled.  "Your sculptor quizzed the oldest who knew the oldest, and back one more to a man who knew Adam."

"But..." V began, and Oberlan smiled.  "This piece precedesth the Global Flood.  Japheth liked it so well, he took it along with them.

[10 blank lines suppressed]

'

"Why?" The professor asked.  'People need to know.'
"Really?  Tell them the pagan gods were just their ancient ancestors.  That Jupiter was just a mauled up by time, name for Japheth?  That we are all sons and daughters of Eve, the first temptress?"

Eager nods greeted him.

"Fools. We seek power.  Ultimate power. The right to use the weak and the unwary as we choose in our efforts to creat e Great Destiny."

"But God..."
"He stands in our way."
"You serve Satan then."
"No. The day will come, and we will break down the doors to hell, and we will bring forth the Morninstar, and cast him down again to a Great Machine able to draw off his powers.  And then we shall raise a Legion of the Dead, and fight heaven."
"You're insane."
"How can I be?  I'm well mannered, politr...?

And all of them rushed him, but lightning bolts sprang up from the half eaten pair and flailed them back.  They scattered, running for safety, and in sheer terror.

But first Paul, and then the others strained to get back together as they surged up the city streets, trying to find a way to rise above the violent overcast layer of clouds from which sprang putrid lightning bolts in blue, and gray, and green, shaking buildings, and lending a peculiar tang to the air.

Besieged and bedraggled, they rose up through the turbulent clouds and into the open area above the city.  And there, on a shaking clay bank was a ten acre lake with water so pure, that V stepped in, intending to wade to the boat.  Instead he went in over his head, and over, and over, until they thought he was thirty feet down before he started fighting back.  He rose and others dove to help him so that in a few minutes, three were safe, but soaked, and shivering.

"I just kept going down. My guess is tht ehe water is a hundred feet.  Looks like four.But, that's the clean water.  Me, I've been, just keep going, and stay calm out like the way the Queen says.  But how are we going to get across...no boat, just a pier, a bucket for fish I guess, and some rope."

Paul scooped up the rope, and tossed it to V.
"Tie one on. Everyone else, how low can you go."  V's face lit up, and he tied the bucket to one end, and began swinging the bucket around his head, feeding out more line.  Everyone else, not already down, soon got down as the spinning loop got wider and wider.  At the back end it drooped almost to touching the face down compadres so Paul shouted....
"Just a bit more." V shouted back, and really put his back into the swing, and then let go as the bucket came forward.

It sailed, seeming to go clear over the boat, and then it began rapidly dropping to moans as it seemed sure to drop before the boat.  And then it landed on the aft deck with a klunk audible from the pier.
"Have a little faith, brothers.  I've done harder shots with a dart and five mugs of beer in me."

With that, they all began pulling.  It was not a quick task because the ship was anchored, but they had it coming, and then Oberlan showed up at the clay dam rimmiing the southern end of the lake.  In his hand was the 'pear', an Atlantaen weather control device.  Everyone's ears popped, and gusts of wind shook the Unbridled Seas while chunks of ice fell off the ceiling to splash far below.

"You and yours will join all the others who through the centuries have thought to give mankind the True history.  We instead, will give them a history that exalts us, and our kind over you and yours.  I revel in this moment to know that you are utterly...."

And a giant lightning bolt flashed from his hand to slaughter the comrades, but Paul had them already diving for the ice cold water of the northern, glacial lake.  In they went with a gasp, and it was as if their heart's stopped beating so cold it was.  But the stronger beat, and begged, and berated the shocked ones into striking out for the boat.

And so they did, using the rope, which they could barely feel as their guide.  And even as they went Paul kept counting out loud, almost in shock himself, but well aware they had precious few seconds before they all were dead, and he was somewhere else, alone, left with the knowledge of his failure and the guilt of surviving.

So  it was him that pushed them, on and on, him that kept his mind clear because he'd been in certain doom before, and then almost as they reached the boat, it was as if a cruel Fate laughed at them.

A jagged bolt of lightning flicked out, came toward them, and then heating the air, it came so close, blessing them with one surge of adrenalin, and a kiss of heat, before leaping into the energy grounds built into the Unbridled Seas.  They had been built to absorb proton cannons, but they worked equally well with the arc of a lightning bolt.

"Ship."
Paul murmured, and an obliging ship drooped to the side, and dropped a ladder.  Once on board, all, but Paul were quickly bundled, and near heaters going on full roar, but Paul made himself go forward.  It was his decision, and his alone.

He cut the anchor with a flick of a button, and popped out the mini sails to catch the flick of the unsettled breezes soaring about the hollow space under the ice.  And the Seas went forward, straight toward Oberlan who took a long second of disbelief too long before turning to run back to the city below which would not have helped him.

And then the Seas hit the clay dam, hit Oberlan and dumped him down the steep hill, and slammed to a halt.  Cries of dismay from behind him turned to bellows of inquiry as to what tom fool thing he had done.  He said nothing.  And yet still nothing, but now he felt the control panel of his ship vibrate just so slightly.  And he heard water splash, water in small quantity that had fallen a long way.

And as the next hue of a cry rose, the clay dam began to give, and the Unbridled Seas edged forward.

"HOLD ON." He yelled.

And then the dam gave, and the Seas was a surfboard at the top of the wave as it came thrashing, smashing, cutting, and carving its way through rock.  An hour later, any survivors would have been sure the chasm created was tens of M years old, but for now it was just fog, and cold spray, and a continuous rumble in the stomach, and a shaking of the long bones, and a high piercing keen that went on and on, and the Seas rode this down into wherever it would go for it was beyond the control any man, least of its erstwhile master.

And then everyone was underwater, and all about chunks of rock the size of skyscrapers flipped and danced in the submarine blue, and a spue the size of a metropolis pursued them, and then they were shoved to the surface by a hand hitting a control even as the hand was not aware.  And on the surface, they saw glaciers calving bergs one after the other, right and left, again and again into the small harbor they had so recently entered with its dock.

But the dock was gone, and the place where it was was now a waterfall fifty feet high, and ninety feet across, and Paul set sail, feeling his head, wondering where the large bump had dome from, and behind him he heard his friends arguing with the professor of history over the history Paul had just destroyed.
"Professor. You need time to get people acquainted to the real facts.  Submarine searches, here and at other abandoned post Ice Centuries sites will give the folks back home time to rewrite the textbooks on human history."
"You...." The professor's response was not quoted due to the dignity of his office.

The End.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:09, Wed 03 June 2015.

Dent's formula for pulp...
1. Different murder method for villain to use,
2  Different thing for a villain to be seeking. computer data encoded. Easy for hero to decode.
3. Different locale.  Easy...a verse.
4. A menace to hang over the hero's head.
Communist involvement to be found, and some operational justice done, and more in the future if he isnot careful.

Dwade Mongomeries towered over the beige cubicle walls as he bent and down typing on his laptop.  Continuing, he coiled himself on the office chair even as his cube mate, Jerry said 'ewwww'.  Not able to rest, he straightened out his legs, and kept one touch typing away at about thirty wpm, and ten seconds later was about to move his legs again, much to Jerry's annoyance, when the phone rang.

He tabbed speaker, and typed.
"Blah, blah, I'm Kelly from 305, blah, blah, more blah. Our computer won't work."
Trying not to waste an hour, Dwade popped his long, skinny neck to the left, and asked if the power cord was in.
"Um, yes, well, I think so. It's kinda hard to say what with the electricity arcing..."
Dwade's mouth hung open, and Jerry's desk went down with a thump behind him.

 Jerry liked to tilt his desk with his legs, and since he could do a deep knee bend with two hundred pounds in free weights on his shoulders, that was not hard moving the cheap metal desk he got as the 'third man' in the Oscar Winchester 'forward cubicle plan system'.  The other third man, Larry, was out late to lunch with one of his secretary girlfriends.

"We'll be right over. Don't do anything."  Both Dwade and Jerry were on their feet and headed to the door as Dwade spoke.  He figured it was safe to let that slide, since rarely in his experience did anyone have any desire to show initiative in OW, Inc., but there could be a first time, and he'd hate for Kelly, who sounded nice, to get electrocuted.  Especially if she was already cute.

Down the hall, past Gordon who looked up from his deep, yet unwindowed office.
"Emergency." Dwade said. Gordon waved them on with a curious look on his face.  He'd want details later, but he was a pro and was not getting in the way of the job.

Dwade ran like a spider, all legs, going strange directions, and Jerry wobbled along, determination more than keeping him up with Dwade who might suddenly stop to examine a hidden nest in the North Carolina woods that held the HQ of OW.  Overhead, the pale green leaves of early spring, and about them the chill, wet breeze as they dashed past small rain puddles on the asphalt Parking Lot North  on the way to the West section which held 305.  Now 405 and 205 were in the East section, which was roughly the other direction, and facing north, but after agreeing in their first hour here that Herr Cthulhu would love whoever designed the layouts of the halls, the two had coped by buying one of the unofficial 'maps to the wild and weird world of ow.' which included best pick up spots, which Dwade was too embarrassed to try.

They got past the outer sentry in the lobby by flying by with badge held up at neck, but the  rigid, dark security guard was less casual, and made them wait several minutes before Dwade snapped.
"Get it in gear, or get out of my way."  And he pushed forward, at which point the guard gave them both their ID's, and let thrm thru with an insincere apology.  Two more flights by stairs since the elevator would be packed, and the duo made their way donw another hall to room 305 where a cluster of speculating folk stood back from a PC spitting out sparks.
'This is bad.' Jerry said.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:50, Wed 03 June 2015.

"Where's this department's IT guy?" Jerry asked, which was kinda not to the point, but useful anyways.
"Its Stefan. Stefan, ah..." One chick in a pink silk blouse began, and stalled out.
"Wendells, I think." A tall man, as tall as Dwade but nervous about it, scratched his head.
"No, Cartwright." Said a short girl, quite cute, whose voice was Kelly's over the phone.
A general babble of assent drew in several others to agree with the group's consensus.
"But...where is he?" Dwade said, losing his temper just a bit.
"Um, there." Kelly quickly jabbed out a slender finger and then yanked it back lest it get bitten.  Dwade looked forward, toward, and saw at the end of the hall, with the spitting computer, that there were a man's shoes laid out on the floor.
"YOU..." He did not want to get fired so he said the rudest thing he could that was not on the List of Not Approved Words for OW's Caring Community.  "Boomers!"  But he ran forward as he shouted, and behind him, Jerry shouted 'wait' and then a definite Level 2 infraction, and came thudding after him.
"Stefan, buddy. We're going to get you out of there..." Dwade had seen enough TV shows to know you were supposed to talk to the injured.  The man was moaning, and moving slightly which was all to the good in Dwade's book because he had figured the guy for a coffin, and a day of public morning, along with a dozen sheets affirming OW's concern for safety, and threatening anyone who talked to the bloggers,and said otherwise.
"Grab his feet, Jerry. I'll get the wire."
There was a hanging wire that swung and twitched back and forth, and below it some yellow fluid, rather like gold, on the thin carpet.  Next to this was a half-0pened computer, with the wire at the back of it, presumbably loose.
"Gotcha." Jerry said, and Dwade knew he had. If Jerry said, he'd get it done,he would.  Which is why, Jerry tried to avoid making promises.
And Dwade reached for the wire....

And the world went very, very sideways....

"This is the dawning, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Age of Aquar..." Dwade thrashed, wincing from the song, feeling and smelling a beat-en down couch under him.
"Hey, man. You okay. Just got a little high." The soft voice belonged to a man dressed in loosely buttoned up shirt with different colored lapels, of all things.
"Did not." Dwade snapped.  It would be bad on his job record if he were caught high, besides other than overdosing on 'stay-awakes' in college final week to the point where he was singing, or rather trying to sing La Traviatta at the full expansion of his lungs at two in the morning, he had been clean.

Around him, a pleasant nook of a record shop, but with amber bead strings in the doorway to the back office, and two men, in front of him, one looking more like a soft-edged mountain man, and the other, a black, with a turtleneck in dark auburn and an Afro of all things.  Dwade set this wonderment aside with a flicker of amusement, and concentrated on what mattered, a skill much developed in a world where oddities and advertisements were constantly yelping for his attention.

Finding he could stand, he did so, and rose to above their height, which was comforting.  Too bad he did not have the massive muscles of his younger brother as well as the height.  The song, a rather poor quality one played on.

"Your DVD is trashed." He gestured toward the sound. "Or your speakers.  I know a bit about that, being in IT."
"Say what, bro?" Asked Afro.  Dwade patted his back pocket for his all-in-one microtoolkit, but it was not there, and neither was his wallet.  Feeling his face flush, he confronted them.
"Where's my wallet!?" They both backed up a step, and denied knowing.  At first, Dwade was disinclined to believe them, but then he hypothesized that a thief would likely have run off with it instead of staying at the scene of the crime.

And the thought of the wallet made him look out, down the street, as if he had lost something that way.
"Perky went that way. Boy's a rat snitch thief. No good. Bout three minutes ago, when we found you on the floor, all mumbling strange stuff." Afro man again spoke, and he seemed sincere, so Dwade gave him a nod, and at a run set out to retrieve his stuff.  No thief was going to get away with...

And then the sheer splendour of a SoCal spring morning caught him fresh in the face, and he stopped hard on the sidewalk.  Pretty, well-groomed girls, none of them in dread-loks, or three hundred pounds overweight, were strolling by, and one of them nodded at him with a giggle.
"Hey Big Blue, come down to the City for a party?"  He stared at her blonde and open face, the clear blue eyes, and then travelled down to her slender legs held together by a checkered miniskirt, and he refocused.
"Uh, sorry, love to, but gotta do, ah, this thing..."  His mind was having a hard time focusing, but he pushed on to more giggles from her two friends.  He'd never had so blatant a come on, except for that drunken woman who stumbled out of a bar as he walked past about three years ago.  Still this was considerably nicer, more innocent than her bitter offer.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:23, Fri 05 June 2015.

And under the bright sun, every detail shouted out to him...
You're not in Kansas anymore.
The cars were of a bygone era, and the girls were lightweight, but not obviously gym rats, and they had a cheerful frankness of manner that did not speak of decades of feminist anger.  The signs too, and the buildings, it all looked newer, nicer, mostly.  Some details, like the sidewalks having more space for weeds, and a girl noting his cheap tie, and commenting on it 'being Italian', but otherwise it was a fresher, richer, more innocent, and peaceful world than the one he had apparently left five minutes ago.

And now he understood 'Big Blue' for that would be IBM, the great company in computers of the era.  They had invented the mainframe, and decided only a few, say fifty people or institutions could use one, so they priced it accordingly to make a profit after their research.  Then fifty thousand groups wanted one, all the way down to local utilities in small towns, and they kept charging the same price, and making money hand over fist.  If he wanted a good job in this era, IBM was obviously the place to be.  Their decline at the keyboards of PC's was a long way off.

He passed people talking about the Duggers and what free food was offered today, and saw a lot of shy kids making friends in the streets. Following on that weird sense, he passed an open shop for pschyedelics which made his eyebrows climb up into his scalp, and got him yelled at by one of the patrons as to 'not judge'.  Not liking the violent tone of the man, Dwade contented himself with pointing out to himself that he himself had been judged.  Evidently, 'don't judge' only applied to Group A and not Group B who were free to judge all they wanted.

He heard a girl talking about the unifying nature of LSD to some listeners, and one of them said 'yeah, like feed your head' when the virtue of mind-opening was espoused.
"Be like Janice." One especially vulnerable looking waif said.
"Yes, Janice Joplin." The leader of her little church in the street nodded approvingly.
"She's dead. Drug overdose." Dwade found himself saying, wishing he had not.  But really, who was looking out for these fools?
This brought hot disputes, and accusations of him being a horrible person, a fascist, but by 2015 calling someone a fascist has lost its sting.  It had been overused to the point where almost no one cared.  But Dwade realized he was early, but still...
"She will. Heroin overdose...I saw it...in my cards."  This solemn appeal to magic had them nodding, and their leaderette spitting mad, but she could not deny his opinion.
"Let me see your hand.' She snarled, and the others chimed in that Valentia was 'a real good fortune teller', and she yanked his hand into hers with such assurance that he felt he could not back out but to make a scene.

Still,he did not like this at all.
She began looking, and then paled.
"You've died, and rose, and you're here to destroy us..."
Tired of this nonsense, he yanked his hand back as he prayed in his mind.  "Lord God..."
And struck by fear, the fortune teller fell back, gibbering with terror.
"You will not destroy the Age of Aquarius, Fish Man, Fisher King. We will not let you."  The voice was odd, unfeminine, old, and filled with loathing and fear.  And then turnning and running as if she were mad, and beset by devils, the girl ran from him.
In pure confusement, Dwade stared at her departing back.  When the others clamored for his wisdom, he smiled faintly, and told them what Nancy Reagan has said about drugs, 'Just Say No.' before passing onward, downslope, and around a corner to view the Golden Gate Bridge.

With each passing step, he saw the sunlit Pleasure Kingdom fade to Shadow.  A wino lay out on the sidewalk, a lot full of trash that would not have been tolerate in the third millenium, a pair of girls with their obvious pimp, a man getting ready to mainline.  And he could see the first days of the party by the Pretty People who had wealth, and contacts, and good habits drummed into them, and he  could see the latter days of the party where the poor stumbled down darkened streets ready to do anything for a high.

It was a vision from his imagination, from his knowledge of history, but he could see the signs all about him, even in what might be soon called the Summer of Love.  This bright utopia of an adolescent daydream could not survive winter, or bad habits, or poor people or even the passage of much time.  It was a most transitory will o wisp dragging men over a cliff led by intoxicated young sirens.

And ahead of him, he saw a man who fit the words 'rat snitch' like a glove who was trying to sell his wallet to another man who seemed uninterested.
"Come on, man.  Look at this. Weird, weird stuff, here, a license set to go out of date in 2017?  And the money, tell me.."
Dwade grabbed it out of his hand, and not even thinking about it, he slammed the rat into the nearest brick wall. The buyer faded away, and a quickl rifling of the rat's pockets turned up the other items the man had stolen just a few minutes ago.
"Who, how did you, I mean, I ran almost, well sort of..."
"I am the Destroyer of Worlds." Dwade said putting on a hard face, meaning a joke, but then realizing that he was completely serious.  AS the rat faded away to the left, Dwade examined his own mind.
AIDS, Boat People, decades of Communist enslavement, massive overexpansion of government, black families destroyed by welfare,  and the middle class bankrupted, and cheerful girls turned into lawsuit ready nuts.  That last was the hardest to bear for Dwade was a young man.  There had to be a better path.
"Yes, I am the Destroyer of Worlds." He spoke quietly to himself, but Heaven and Hell and things beneath the Earth and sleeping in the Deep heard.

Graeme Herzog picked himself up from the boulder-strewn rockslide of a hill still shuddering after being killed for the fourth time. 572 booted strides downhill took him to his 'go bag', which had been on the second floor of his apartment in New Amsterdam, capital of the North American Provinces.

Considering the desolate hillside, Graeme took out his gladius, and a pair of horse pistols, which he charged, and then strapped on along with the blade.  The blade had come from Earth, product of a fine swordsmith in Atlanta, but the pistols came off Red Jack Steagan's corpse before the Redcoats dumped him overboard without so much as a Grace because everyone figured Red Jack was only going to one place.

A dagger was already in his tan trail boots, hid under the crisp blue jeans.  Rubbing his dark auburn beard, Graeme pulled out a mini-drone, basically an RC plane, floated it up with a non-recoverable balloon since there was no proper air strip, not even ten flat yards nearby.  It cut loose, and for a long second fell, nose down toward the stony earth.

At the last second the engine spun on, and the prop pulled the tiny plane up and out.  He took it high, about two thousand feet, and circled it about giving him views from every direction.  To sundown, which he decided to call, west, there was a trail along a hillside, water, and small trees, twisted by harsh conditions.  To the southeast seemed a pile of blocky buildings of not great size, but they looked as if they were from one to four stories tall.  And there seemed to be shapes that just might, it was hard to say, might be bipedal.

Without object recognition software, threatanalysis exsys, or any of the other really cool software that Pieter Grant, the verser who did orientation for this strange new life of death after life, Graeme was forced to rely on his own eyes.  And while swinging back for another look at the 'city', he saw some moving objects to the north.  Looking up that way, he saw with his own eyes, four shapes clear a hill at a dead run, low, long, four legged 'wolves'.
And they came directly for him.  Without more ado, he drew a horse pistol with one hand, and tabbed the drone to run a steady circle, a holding pattern with the other.  The creatures came on, red furred, giant, slavering, nearly running forty miles per hour straight at him.

He lined up a shot...

"Hold. Hold. Don't shoot.' The first cried.

Startled, realizing these were sentient beings, he pulled up his horse pistol only to see them double their speed, and laugh.  The speaker chortled 'stupid', and the rest laughed as they landed on him, tumbled him over, and tore at his arm until his fingers gave over the gun even if not at his will.

Laying down in a shallow bowl, with a three hundred pounded fox-like wolf on his chest, he spat at it.

"Then kill me."
That one growled, and Graeme gutturally snarled back which amused the creature.
Off to his side, one of them spoke.

"Now, human, do not be that way." The voice was squeaky, and whiny, and without much in the nature of change, but decipherable, and clearly coming from one of the Giant Foxes, err wolves.
"You're going to eat me, so get it over with."
The one on his chest got off, and retreated a couple paces to sit down, and view the situation. He then 'woofed' and even though canine was not one of his languages, he clearly understood a 'get on with it'.
"No, we're going to take you back to our camp, and put you to work.'  The Giant Fox laughed then.  "unless you're prefer to  be eaten.......but, I can tell by your fervent headshakes that you're a reasonable man.  Good. Then GET UP"

Not wasting time with merely human speed, once they divested him of sword and gun, he was put on the back of the one who called himself 'Talker', and the rockside landscape melted away in a rush of speed and wind that to his surprise he found himself enjoying, if only he was not a slave to a non-human civilization.
They came to a trail down between some rocks, but instead Talker leapt across the trail, scrambled, nearly fell, and then leapt again drawing howls of protests from the others.
"I always win. They thought to have me lose by carrying you." He said smirking as he walked into the pebble built camp ten minutes later with his compadres just cresting the ridge overlooking the camp behind him by several hundred yards.  "Now they can clean the sheep pens again while I sit and relax."
Nearly staggering, Talker drooped to a chair of stone with one near it suited for human.  A veneer of wool kept the stone from being too rough.  Aching legs eased as Graeme slipped off as well.
With dozens of 'Foxines' which he learned they called themselves in sight, he made no sudden movement, but instead just sat and massaged his legs.  The others in the capture pack came up, and began snipping at Talker while he taunted them. Finally, their captain put an end to it with a single 'whoof'.  A few intstructions in Bark were given, and Talker nudged Graeme to his feet.

He took them through a village with hundreds of Foxines, and dozens of Humans dressed in woolens or deerskins, and down to a clear beach with a waterfall.
"Clean." Talker nudged a lava rock. "You stink."
"I...not that badly."
"How do you think we found you so quick? We were on patrol and smelled you from over a week's five hundred paces away."  This led to some questions which established a pace as roughly seven feet, and a week's worth was seven, so...about three miles away he guesstimated.  Which bore bad news for his escape.
So, Graeme spent the next hour getting clean in what was apparently the men's beach, although he saw women walking along a high trail further down toward the descending river, and coming back with hair wet.  None of them were all that attractive to his eye, but he had recently been in New Amsterdam where every third woman was aiming to be a model or an actress.
Dressed in new clothing, a woolen tunic of light brown with one red stripe running vertically down it, he came up.
"It means warrior."
Graeme looked shocked, but Talker merely led him onward until they came to the largest house.  It was a round thing, fifty feet across, with roof six feet high of palm like leaves, dried.  The doorway was open save for a woolen towel much like what Graeme wore.

Stooping his head, Graeme walked in.

Surrounded by a half dozen impressive Foxine, several with prominent battle scars, and one that looked as if it had been made by a gun, sat a silver-haired beast of nearly seven hundred pounds.  Over and around him ran, and dove a dozen little pups.  They were clearly having a good time stalking each other, tumbling head over paws down the king's back, and two of them were trying to subtly sneak up on the king's massive casually twitching tail while an expression of grave amusement lurked on his long jaws.

Graeme smiled, relieved.

"Leave us." Said the King. Followed by some shork barks.  The dozen fled, some looking back unhappily to a far doorway which also held a blanket pulled back by a female Foxine who was calling her brood.

"I apologize for interrupting playtime, your highness." Graeme said.
"Yes. This..." Talker had also came in,and he came up to the King's side and spoke in his ear.

'Yes, thank you for such joy. But it is not fitting for pups to be in on such serious business."
"Indeed." Graeme agreed, not really sure what was going on.
"You will be executed at dawn."
"What?" Primitive panic coursed through Graeme's veins even as his logical mind reminded him he was a quasi-immortal.  That is, he died in one world, and lived in another.
"A quick bite, as befitting a warrior." The King paused as hoping this amelioration would calm the visitor.  Graeme wanted to scream, or grab a weapon, instead he calmed himself with prayer.
"O King, what have I done to merit this punishment?"
"You are a Man of the City, and know our Law. Though you are brave unlike many of them, but the Law remains."
"As it should, O King." The King turned aside at this acknowledgement, and began to speak to another of other business, as two guards padded up toward Graeme to usher or push him out.  "But, I am innocent of this charge." He called out loudly.
There was a long pause, and the King studied him.
"You have clothes and weapons such as they."
Graeme paused, he really was not up for 'but you have to believe me'.
"That's a valid point." He said slowly. The King's ears perked up in surprise.  And another Foxine spoke to the King, so that he turned and with narrowed eyes addressed Graeme.
"Did you just pray, and to Whom?"
Suddenly things looked much worse, but Graeme had his pride, and his love of God, and so he spoke.
"The Creator, the Three in One, the I AM.  He has many names, but he is Power and Glory, the  First and the Last.  He cannot be stopped save by his own generosity."
"And I tell you of deep things.  The Man, Dr. Raymond Keller, he spoke to my Ancestor. "Just as I made you, Rover, so Someone made Man, and All that is."
"And Rover said, I know this already, Man.  We speak much daily.  He says that you are to let me go for I and my kindred will stand on the Earth as guardians of Man, and Man's soul for we have no sin."

Graeme stood and blinked.
"Then this City is evil?"
"They kill their children in worship of prosperity."
"Then let me help you, O King." And the Man bowed before the Dog.

Mitch Leary, third cousin of the more famous Leary, Timothy did not go for 'turn on, tune in, drop out' instead as her slurped down a protein shake astride his bike, he believed 'my body is a temple'.  But one aggreement came out.

"Wickham. Sign it. Let's go. Let's go." Mitch tossed the empty bottle at the half-full trash can, scored, and rode forward three spins, grabbed the yellow envelope, and tugged after feeling resistance.
"Stop, Mitch. Whattajerk. Who's the manager here, anyways?"
"Move your slow self, Wickie-Tickie-Tavi." Wickham yanked back, and scribbled his initials on the envelope during the tug of war between the two.  And then he released it, and turned to the next envelope on the stand next to him, between the rank garbage can and his well coifed hair, and trim tan pullover.  Already he could tell that he was going to have to shower before going clubbing tonight, and it was only nine in the morning.
Mitch sped off, picking up speed rapidly down the side street of Chi-Town.
"Thanks, Weakie." He shouted back.
"Joike." Wickham's New Jersey accent came out under stress.

Walter Jessams grunted, rolled his shoulders inside the dark woolen suit, and pawed his face seeking relief from the tedium of bill-paying.  As a detective, he was supposed to have an accountant, either Murray the Jewish sharpster, or Glenna, the jaw-dropping mantrap, at least according to the bylaws in his mind.  Instead, he had a stubby pencil, and a poor excuse for a desk, a bit of wreckage reclaimed from the city dump.

The frosted glass door opened, and a slim blonde in a black secretary skirt, white silk blouse, and a cloud of fine hair touched by raindrops entered with the clicking of her heels, and the scent of jasmine.  Now that's more like it, Walter thought, setting aside paper with a thump, and pencil with a decisive place, which he missed, and had to do again.  With both meaty hands, he levered himself half-up, his lips squashed together, his arm like a wooden guardrail pointing to one of his cheap wooden seats across the desk.

"Please, can you help me?" And then she burst into body-shaking tears which surprised and awed Walter.  He came from a time and place where women, being women cried, but not so unrestrainedly.  It was one of the many weird things about being transported to this alternate forties, along with open smoking, and ordinary guys with good jobs that was difficult to get one's head around.

After a few seconds of the woo-woo, she lifted her head to see his perplexed face.  He nodded briskly.
"Ma'am, its my job.  Its what you pay me for. To help you, that is." He spoke a bit awkwardly, stiff.  She nodded, taking the measure of the man.  'Big Walter' Jessams was not a leader of men, nor a playboy, nor rich, but he looked like a pit bull waiting to be unleashed, and at two hundred fifty pounds, six feet three inches tall, he was a very large pit bull.  Anyone who got in his way might find their day taking a dramatic turn for the worse.

"All right." She said breathily. "My name is Alice Carter.  I came home, well, to my uncle Sinclair Carter's place. He was going to put me up that night, and then drive us both home to  my parent's house in Beldingham, North Carolina."

"Quite a drive, Miss Carter." Walter scribbled some notes with his stub of a pencil,in bold, quick strokes, fully furious.  He spoke to let her know he followed. West Highland was in north central Tennessee, and a beautiful industrial town, dotted about by fields, berry patches, and lumber lots.  But the roads to North Carolina were terrible.  In this timeline, there would be no Interstate.

"Yes, I can't manage it.  Not even in my Davis." She spoke casually of a Davis car, but they were prized collectibles, V12 engines, beautiful styling, named after the victorious president of the War of Secession.  His estimate of her wealth went up by several notches, and any plans to take on the case pro bono were immediately shelved, hard.

"But when I get there, he's not there."  She broke out into jagged sobs, which Walter thought this time to be genuine so he proffered a clean hankerchief, kept for that purpose in the front of his desk, after fiddling with the screechy right side door for over ten seconds of increasing aggravation that almost brought a smile to the young girl's face even as she dabbed away tears with her curled hand.

She really was beautiful, he thought, awed.  A feminine charm, a lithe build, and good posture multiplied the effect so that what would have been a lovely girl in rollerblades in his home timeline was simply stunning instead, beyond being lovely as the Sun is beyond the Moon.  He pushed at his eyes with thick sausage link fingers to focus back on her tale.

He rattled off from memory the standard array of questions.  Enemies? Debts? Women trouble?  Strange comments made recently? Did he seem worried?
None, unless you count the editor of the Highland Prime, the regional newspaper.
He owned his own house, and scooter outright. In point of fact, he was a Ramsayite.
None that she was aware of as his wife had died of cholera after visiting the Northern Aristocracy ten years ago.
One of her 'friends' at college had told her 'your uncle called, wanted me to pass along a message, not to come.' But Jeft was a joker, and I did not take is seriously.

"Should I have?"

He denied with a hearty shake of his full head of dark hair, flinging a large hand casually out as if throwing something in the trash, figuring that causing her worry was to no one's benefit, and uncertain of what was going on in some basic sense.  Like what was a Ramsayite?

He drew himself up, uncomfortable, a bit squished in his too tight woolen jacket.

"My fee is $25 a day." He cleared his throat of significant phlegm, wishing he could spit it out. "And expenses."

"Of course." She handed him nothing, and he quickly discerned she did not intend to pay him.  Not that she meant to be honest.  She meant for her uncle to pay him after he was found.

He did not want to bother her.  She was so lovely.  But, he really needed the money.

"I need some cash down."
"Ah. Um. Of course." She pulled out her smart, little purse of samite white, and with a distinct sense of paranoia carefully opened it, facing her, and fiddled with bills in it.
She pulled out a five, a Jackson, Stonewall Jackson, and his sympathy evaporated.  He just stared at her.  With reluctance she produced a tenner, a Lewis and Clark.
Unless he wanted to press her, that was all he was getting.  And it was possible that it was close to all she had.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:41, Fri 03 July 2015.

Wimmen. Walter Jessams muttered after the blonde beauty left, leaving jasmine and bitterness in her wake.  She had boutique clothes, and a collectible status car, and yet stinted at paying him a full day's labor, let alone expenses.  Cracking his neck, then jaw, then fingers, one at a time while sitting at the dump recovered desk let his thoughts roam a bit to see if any fish rose to nibble at his bait tossed into the pool of consciousness.  But no, his job was plain.

Find the girl's uncle.

He rose like an elephant, and grabbed an overcoat to lay over his left arm to disguise the derringer up his sleeve.  Inside the desk, bottom drawer, he turned back for his Colt 1925 in .41.  The rounds here ran from .20 to .32 to .41, and his went inside his left breast.  Also he picked up a hard sided brieface with his intitials deeply embossed into it.  It took him three tries, but he tossed the fedora up with his foot, and landed it, jauntily he thought on his head.

Down on Tenth Street last year, he had seen a vaudville guy during the break between an interesting "Black Swan" pirate epic, and "Boom Town" about oil wildcatters, do his dance and shuffle, and end with flicking his hat which lay on the ground to land directly on his own head.  Since then, Walter had gone through three hats, but he could usually land a hat on his head with a couple tries.

And out into the drizzling rain he went, only to have his shoulder grabbed, and him be dragged under the white and red striped awning of Marone's  Arcadian deli next door.  To him, it smelled Cajun, but in this here and now, that was Arcadian, and New Orleans was the Great Arcade where you could gamble your life away with Las Vegas not even being a spot on the map.

Little Louie faced him, and behind him were two of Louie's goons.
"You owe me a clean thousand. Now." Louie practically screamed.  His voice vibrated, and spittle launched from his gaping mouth, and pass the missing teeth where soneone had taken offense to his manners.
But the rudeness was the very point.  In the Confederacy, human dignity was the norm, and thus bulldozer manners were shocking.
"You know Louie, I'm surprised someone hasn't called you out for a duel, by now."
"Yeah, well maybe they have."
"No." Walter popped his neck with a sudden jerk which startled his 'captors'. "I think not. You're still here."
Louie flushed.
"Listen you...pay up now, or..."
That was enough. Walter triggered the rig inside his left wrist.  The derringer popped into his hand, and he pressed the hard barrel of it up to the location where Louie's nonexistent heart should be.
"I borrowed two grand. I promised to pay one hundred a month. There was no agreement about you upping the payment after I missed one time out of nine months, for just a week.  No.  So we have a deal, and that's how it stays."
Louie's mouth gaped like a fish, and his face was blotchy.

"Really?" Big Walter Jessams smiled faintly, and then turned his head to the right a bit to survey from a mountain, a nearby hill.  The goon looked pasty, flabby, and maybe one-fifty pounds.  The huge man rotated his head like a turret, and smiled friendly-like at the man to his left, who while in better shape might hit one hundred thirty pounds if his pockets were full of pennies.  That man just smiled back, raised his hands and shook his head.

Walter leaned in and down to Little Louie's face.

"I think someone's mouth has been writing checks their ass can't cash.  So why don't you run along, and bother some schoolkid for their lunch money.  Hmm?"

Louie flushed, furious, but terrified, reminded yet again of what he had drank half a bottle of gin to forget before marching out to brace his most insufferable client.  Big Walt was a giant, and a gunman, and grim in purpose.

"Let's go, boss." Said the man to the left, and sputtering out curses, Louie let himself be led away.  Inside, Walter saw Old Man Maroni eyeing him with a certain interest through the front pane of Marone's Arcadian Deli.  Walter nodded back.  He was not the sort to organize a neighbourhood, or be a vigilante, but he could be an example.  Prove to the people they did not have to listen to the Mafia when the came by for their weekly demands.  Walter gave the old man a significat nod, and hiked on toward the tram stop.

Walt strode down the street, whistling in the rain, until he came to the tram stop.  Underneath its wooden frame and shingled shed roof, he waited in steamy quiet for the next car.  After a bit, a young boy caught his eye.  The lad was in striped yellow and black with shorts and short boots.  He stared wide-eyed up at Walt who winked back which got the little fellow to hide behind his mother's arm.

"I'm sorry, sir. Jonathan is...very curious."
"Are you in the circus?" Jonathan blurted out even as his embarrassed and proper mother tried to shush him.  Walt's low, relaxed chuckle stopped that, and caught the ear of the others there as well, a banker sort, and a young guy in a leather jacket.
"No, young Jonathan, I am not circus giant or strongman." Walt slowly crouched down until his buttocks were almost on his heels, and rain spattered his lower back, and smiled across at Jonathan.  "I am a private detective."
"Do you have a gun?" Jonathan blurted again.
"I might. Do you have one, Jonathan?"
"Just a Red Rhyder. It shoots BB's.  I want a Four-Eleven, but Daddy says it kicks too much for me."
"Your father is right.  And even if he wasn't, you should still listen to him." This homily got accepting nods from everyone, including the wife, with the kid adding "I know, Ujstwiah..."
"So do we all, Jonathan." He patted the young lad on the head, and then rose as the tram car pulled up.  Getting onboard by squeezing in between columns and metal elbow rests on the green and red heavily embroidered in iron tram was difficult, but he managed it.
The city apartments and shoppes with the first two floors devoted to sellspace, and the usually spacious attic for sleeping with the neccessary high ceilings to keep it at all comfortable, and even then in the summer months, shoppies and their children slept on rail-guarded roofs. The greenway, a loose string of parks about the center of the city was passed with sighs of appreciation, and birdsong, and the distant yells of children starting to play ball as the rain had just stopped.  Then the factory belt, where property had been cheap enough to buy large lots of land for factories.  Here, enormous brick walled structures put out the goods of the day as slavery and the agrarian society, while rich, had carried in them the seeds of their own destruction.  That same wealth had financed factories, and unlike his time, these factories were grand and beautiful structures.  The bones were the same as function drove form, but wider windows, columns, porches, and even the excesses of the All Awning Style which had awnings stretching from the top of four story buildings out a hundred feet and more, and under it, picnic tables, and vines, and cheap beer for the workers because no one 'drove' home, except for the richest executives, on occasion.

The plantation owners, now the operators of great mechanized machines better than the tractors and machines of his own childhood, but not computerized as later came to be, had seen what tramlines did to the countryside, and an astute leader of theirs had guessed what the car could do.  So with a few small laws passed, it became much easier to use the tram, and more expensive to use the car, and Mr. Ford's innovations were stillborn.  The result was good, cheap transport throughout the city, smaller cities, cheaper farmland, and less transport from city to city.  It was not uncommon for a man to visit at most one or two other states in his life.

Beyond this were 'the developments' where developers bribed local pols to build new roads, and sometimes new sewer lines, and then the developer built the houses, and took all the profit, but the bribe share for himself, while leaving the city taxpayers on the hook for a half dozen miles of asphalt and concrete tubing.

Whipleydale, Lunchside, Dawn Hill, Hillcrest, Outer Wood, Marham's Manor, New Whipley, and Jay Burnside, with a few more extending outwards, but the detective got off at this tram stop with a couple others.  Avoiding conversation with curious neighbours, he set out quickly, hiking into the curves and roundabouts of Jay Burnside, so named for being on the side of the Jay Creek, or burn.

It was up and down mostly, a hillside overlooking a creek with some wooden footbridges, and a too damp to be used flood plain turned to park across the creek that was in view most of the time so that a nervous nelly of a mother had but to walk out, and peer downhill a quarter-mile to see what your younguns' were up to this day.  But the same civilization, a woman or a man artist or artisan at home, and in each home made for things tricky for a private detective.

He walked briskly, but not too much so, as if he knew where he was going.  After two false turns and three narrow eyed glances, he found the right road.  Now these roads were more of bike paths as he saw them, wide, asphalted, but not suited for cars really, not on any ordinary basis.  But cars were few, and up in the individual developments, the tram did not go.

Each house was its own, although distinctly modular, each owner got to make their own choices, and too add to that, they all grew their own sort of thing in the front yards and backs.  Upon coming to the uncle's place, the detective saw squash entangled with green beans on a wire, and behind that, vines for grapes, all encircled by a chain link fence.

But there were a dozen kids of all ages playing in the street, and two mothers chatting too each other, kept half an eye on the game.  The detective quickly discerned that the point of the game was to throw the ball straight, but as far as possible, and then run the bases, a kind of baseball without a bat, and the runner being his own pitcher.

So he walked up, and asked to play a shot.  But each one was too eager for his own turn, until he challenged them.
"I'll make it past the blue painted house, or I'll give you a dollar."
"Gold, not paper junk." One real short kid, with a blunt demand said this, and the detective  pulled out the tiny silver coin with the dab of gold in the center that stood for one dollar.
"No bounces." A big lad said, and he agreed, took the rubber ball in his right hand, wound up and threw it as far as he could, not sure how it would react.

It flew.

And as everyone looked at it, he made his way around the side wall of the uncle's house.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:16, Mon 06 July 2015.

The side door, more used by the beaten path in the grass around the stepping stones, was locked, which not a given in this world.  Fishing out his hooks, he went into a mild trance, shallow water, and slipped around a bit in the lock, like trying to get a bass to bite.  And then the hit, and he grinned widely, his mouth stretched out to layer up his cheek muscles.

Inside lay a dimly lit corridor with a carpet runner, old, and a bit bedraggled.  The edges caught under the huge man's soles as he slow walked up the hall.  The main living room opened up, with a sliding glass door at the back, a hall leading to bedrooms on the right, and a clear set of glassite columns to the left let light and view into the kitchen on the side of the living room.  Nothing moved, not even the dust on the coffee table.

The house lay waiting in silence until, the detective began moving again.  Then the floor creaked under his soft tread as he moved about, careful not to disturb as he slid magazines back to peer under them.  Saturday Morning Logbook; Popular Mechinician; History were all middlebrow, educational magazines a thoughtful man of normal intellect would enjoy.

But Principles of Accounting and a ledger book on the kitchen table were not the sort of thing for most men, even highly intelligent men.  Why? He pursed his thick lips with the question.

Looking further in the house, the only things he found out of the way were a pair of locked boxes under the bed.  One held spare change, the other spare ammo.  Doubling back, on his way out, he checked the fridge.  Found a few sheets, one for a bowling league, another for times at a lifter's club, what they called a gym in his time, and several basic recipes for chicken and beef that looked as if they would be tasty.  More evidence that the man was a bachelor.

Getting out of the house proved problematic.  The kids playing ball in the street had moved up the street by some kind of natural kid brownian motion, and were now right in front of his escape route. So he plodded out back, and with a heartfelt sigh espied a eight foot tall fence overgrown with honeysuckle vines.

Merely to get to the chain link fence required grabbing several handfuls of vines, and moving them out of the way.  But when he tried to boost himself up, the fence gave way under him, sagging.  The top hung loose and unconnected.

His right leg and chest up on the trembling hill, he gave up any chance of a clean jacket, and squirmed and slithered over, only to crash on the far side which had a decline of forty degrees, and come thundering to a rest against a young maple sapling of two inch diameter.

His breath gone, and thoroughly shaken up, the detective lay there for a moment. Then he began moving and groaning. Finally, he pried himself up to spot a mud-strewn irrigation canal  that ran behind the fences, and three teenage boys.  One had a black leather vest, and was evidently the leader, by both height and cockiness.

"Give us, or we call the cops." The little hoodlum said pulling out the fragment of a cig he had probably stolen from his father's ashtray, and puffing to look bad.  Spoiled, when he coughed.

Like an avalanche, the detective came down hill, and the trio moved back lightly, with careful eyes on him.  They were well aware that if he got one hand on them it was all over.  He lunged, like freight train starting, and the leader leapt back and landed in a puddle.

Some cursing ensued as the detective smiled, and rolled his shoulders.

"You can't catch us."
He stooped and picked up a large rock.
"Mebbe not."  The trio turned a bit paler as the huge man hefted the volley ball sized rock easily.
"We just want some..." Began the littlest, only to be hushed.
"Candy and cookie money for down at Gretel's Candy Emporium."  All three of their eyes lit up, and the detective did not blame them.  Even he enjoyed walking in to the store with its five glass racks holding trays of fudges and chocolates and cupcakes, along with its barrels of hard candy, and the hanging taffee fresh off the taffee making machine in the window smelled so good.  It was a bright, beautiful haven of gleaming pine wood, and whimsical light fixtures arranged to make sure everything gleamed, and the candies were displayed to best advantage.
To a young boy caught between lunch and dinner, a chocolate dipped oatmeal raisin super deluxe special from Gretel's was a matter of some urgency.
"I'm tracking down the man who lives in that house."
"You debt collector? Mob?" The leader said, taking a half step away preparing to run.  At this mark of moral fiber, the detective decided to give them more money.
"No." He showed them his P.I. badge. "He's dissappeared, and a family member wants to know why. That's all I can say."
"Client confidentallty." Said the biggest boy, who was not the leader for he had no vest, and he had some snot near his nose.  The detective nodded, and waited in hope.
"OK. Yeah, he was a nice guy. Never minded if we took half-rotted peaches from his side of the fence over there, from off the ground." He jabbed a finger down the way to where a peach tree grew outside, but hung over the fence.

"That Mr. Lewis was strong." Said the biggest lad.  "I," He blushed at seeing everyone looking at him.
"Go on, Johnny." His leader said.
"Mitch, over on Apple. He'd bent his mom's fireplace poker, with a rope. And he couldn't unbend it, so Mr. Lewis came over, and I saw him unbend it with his bare hands."

That seemed to be the whole of the testimony for the back channel court, and so I said.
"I was going to give you one..." groans. "But you seem like good lads so I'll go one each." Cheers.

I handed out the money which almost took out my ready bills, and they split, yelling thank you, mister, as they beat feet for cookies and fudge and sparkly pop.  I walked on out of there, and as I climbed up back to the street, I heard a mellow, male voice above me say.

"Need some help, there, friend." I looked up, and there stood a boy in blue.  His blue suit,and brass buttons and circular shield identified him as West Highland Patrol.  My heart sank slowly  to my stomach, and I shrugged my oversized shoulders in which I was already sweating.

"Don't mind if I do." I held up a hand, and he pulled, and I pulled, and for one second we both realized that I could yank him down, and dump him in the ditch.  But I slacked off on my pulling just a bit, and drove upward with my thick columnar legs.

He was a big man, probably two hundred pounds, but I was taller, broader, and thicker so that he took a step back to find room in case he needed to swing the nightstick which from his facial exression was not a maneuver he did that often.

"You want to tell me why I hear from a couple folk that you're walking through the neighbourhood, sir?"

I sighed, and he tensed.

"Please, officer. Let me show you something." I held my hands out flat, pacifically.  He nodded after a second.  Slowly I reached in, and pulled out my P.I. badge holder, and not moving my feet, extended my arm out, and held it at the tips of my fingers.  He seemed to appreciate my understanding, and gingerly took the holder.

After carefully examining it, he said in a calmer voice.
"That still doesn't explain what you're doing here."
"Do you know Lieutenant Landers?"
He narrowed his eyes, and studied me, and then nodded.
"Last year, there was some..." I paused, not sure how to describe what still gave me nightmares.
"Very bad business." He finished.
"I was one of the 'unnamed consultants. Now you know me, and you can check with Landers to see if I'm lying. The thing is, I'm trying to find Sinclair Lewis who might have gone missing."
"No police report."
"Forty-eight hours, officer. You know how it is."
He nodded in understanding.
"So, I may have ..." I began my confession of breaking and entering, for a good cause.
He held up a hand.
"What I don't know about, I don't have to report.  Let me walk you down to the tram station."
"Thanks, officer." I peered over at his badge. "Daniels."
And we walked down, casual, him making a show of everything being all right and under control, and me not being a threat.  Twenty minutes later, I caught the tram back into the city.
I bought a flavored ice from one of the running vendors at Whipleydale.  There is a hill right before the city proper, and a teenager with a long stick and a holder can take your money, and give you back a fresh ice in red or green, that is strawberry or lime, in twenty seconds flat while sprinting alongside the tram, but its a keep the change op, so I burned a dollar for two ices, which is only half that price.  I gave one to the redfaced toddler next to me with his father's thanks.  After finishing mine, and shoving the wax paper cone into the disposal, I drifted off to sleep until I heard 'Eight Station. Station Eight.'

That popped me up, and squirming out, and it was only two blocks further to the lifting club frequented by Sinclair Lewis. The building front stood square, a bit aloof, as if the neighbours did not like it, and it did not care.

The screen door hung half-busted, and repaired, and inside at a dingy desk, and old man with  odd knuckles, and a flat cap looked up, and up.
"You lift?" The old man spat out some tobacco speckled phlegn into a Dixie cup.
"A bit. Three hundred, at home." Walter Jessams allowed. The old man's eyebrows went up.
"RRowr. Not bad. We can get that up here.  We have some good equipment, and trainers, and spots." He spat again.
"Let me look around."
"Sure. Take your time. We put in a new sauna too."
Walt nodded his large head, loosened his jacket in the warmth, and appreciated the unadorned manliness of the gym.  A long spattering of scheduled fights overlaying earlier fights serenaded down the concrete block wall leading to the changing room.

Inside, h esaw no onde;
This message was last edited by the player at 20:04, Sat 11 July 2015.

Once he got to the locker room, which looked sturdy and clean, and otherwise appropriate with a few cracks in whitewashed stone walls, and an edgeless mirror over a sink basin with hard soap, and a long wooden bench in the middle of the room, he wondered how he would find the right locker.

But then he chuckled to himself as he looked at the lockers.  Half of them had names on them, and a third of the way up was number thirty-one, "Mr. Sinclair Lewis."  Good ol' alternate nineteen-forties.  The simple combination lock he began picking with skills he had picked up in high school from when he forgot his own combination lock.  Opening it, he found himself slammed against the wall of lockers which gave under him with a mighty racket.  Several other, unguarded doors popped open.

The man facing him was a good one-hundred eighty, and dressed out in a bright red wife-beater, and red trunks with a weight belt across his stomach, and enough muscles to make it clear he had earned the wearing of that item.

"Now, Mackie. Whatcha' doin?" And the man shoved Walt again, or tried too, but Walt flung him back to bounce on the far side of the narrow room, against another set of lockers.
"Why don't you move on, small stuff." Walt said, cracking his neck.  The man's eyes went round, as he had probably never been called 'small' before.
"You're..."
"Yeah." Walt said with a cheerful smile that spread his face.  His left hand was still doubled up for a hook, but it looked like it would not be needed.
"Jimmy! Eddy!" The man yelled. "Come quick."  And the pounding of athletic shoes heralded the arrival of more than one big man.
"Oh drat." And Walt ran for the other exit, the one out into the gym proper.
The walls were high, lit by four long, slender pencils of windows near the roof, and the gym itself was half boxing, half lifting of iron weights with a man  not as large as Walt rising from the weight bench after putting down two hundred pounds.
Walt fast-walked past him with a smile both fierce and professional.  And he had almost reached the front door when he heard the first man, the one who called him 'Mackie' as some sort of insult or title.

"Joe, tag him." Not wanting to find out how Joe tagged, Walt sidestepped, which saved his life.  The ten pound weight missed his head, rebounded off the wooden door with a dent and a massive thud, and landed on Walt's right calf as he spun back around to face his pursuers.

"Lock the doors, Stu." The leader yelled, and he could see the four lifters making use of five and ten pound dumbbells.  He was not going to be 'stoned' to death, but metalled, as it were.  He reached back, and heard the door click locked behind him.

Once he got to the locker room, which looked sturdy and clean, and otherwise appropriate with a few cracks in whitewashed stone walls, and an edgeless mirror over a sink basin with hard soap, and a long wooden bench in the middle of the room, he wondered how he would find the right locker.

But then he chuckled to himself as he looked at the lockers.  Half of them had names on them, and a third of the way up was number thirty-one, "Mr. Sinclair Lewis."  Good ol' alternate nineteen-forties.  The simple combination lock he began picking with skills he had picked up in high school from when he forgot his own combination lock.  Opening it, he found himself slammed against the wall of lockers which gave under him with a mighty racket.  Several other, unguarded doors popped open.

The man facing him was a good one-hundred eighty, and dressed out in a bright red wife-beater, and red trunks with a weight belt across his stomach, and enough muscles to make it clear he had earned the wearing of that item.

"Now, Mackie. Whatcha' doin?" And the man shoved Walt again, or tried too, but Walt flung him back to bounce on the far side of the narrow room, against another set of lockers.
"Why don't you move on, small stuff." Walt said, cracking his neck.  The man's eyes went round, as he had probably never been called 'small' before.
"You're..."
"Yeah." Walt said with a cheerful smile that spread his face.  His left hand was still doubled up for a hook, but it looked like it would not be needed.
"Jimmy! Eddy!" The man yelled. "Come quick."  And the pounding of athletic shoes heralded the arrival of more than one big man.
"Oh drat." And Walt ran for the other exit, the one out into the gym proper.
The walls were high, lit by four long, slender pencils of windows near the roof, and the gym itself was half boxing, half lifting of iron weights with a man  not as large as Walt rising from the weight bench after putting down two hundred pounds.
Walt fast-walked past him with a smile both fierce and professional.  And he had almost reached the front door when he heard the first man, the one who called him 'Mackie' as some sort of insult or title.

"Joe, tag him." Not wanting to find out how Joe tagged, Walt sidestepped, which saved his life.  The ten pound weight missed his head, rebounded off the wooden door with a dent and a massive thud, and landed on Walt's right calf as he spun back around to face his pursuers.

"Lock the doors, Stu." The leader yelled, and he could see the four lifters making use of five and ten pound dumbbells.  He was not going to be 'stoned' to death, but metalled, as it were.  He reached back, and heard the door click locked behind him.

Having no choice, he shook his head sadly, and began reaching for his gun only to find his wrist and the gun intercepted by a ten pound weight that drove the air ouf of him with a grunt.  The gun went down to the left where he accidentally kicked it with his wingtips, and so he grabbed for his briefcase.  Another bar hit the door behind him inciting a protest of the owner outside, and thumped down on his back.

He took up the briefcase, saw one coming in as he wobbled to the right, and blocked it. The handle near tore off, and so without more ado, he threw himself at the locked door with desperate force, half-ripping it from the hinges.

To cries of 'get him', he kicked the door, and drove the older man outside back.  And then spun about and took a punch to the jaw from a fairly large fellow, before slamming his briefcase into the man's stomach, and folding him over like an envelope flap.  Then turning burning gaze upon the others, he dared them to come on, which they took them aback a second until they rekindled their nerve.  But in that time, he had busted out the door, and gotten to the main door.  And he was out and down the street before they could catch him.

Wheezing, heaving, and wobbling, the huge man trekked a curving path back to the tram line.  It seemed Sinclair Lewis had good friends at the gym, or they were just touchy about thieves.  Odd that, the big man chuckled darkly to himself as thankfully took the back end seat of the tram, the one he did not need to squish to get into.  For, he hurt, and so he made his way home, to a bottle of aspirin, and some liniment.

Later that night, he took one of the by the hour mid-evening trams out, after dosing himself, showering in very hot water, and napping with a snore loud enough to rattle the picture on the wall.  Breaking in, with lockpicks took a half-minute only because he dropped them, and had to fumble for the picks on the ground.  His wax paper wrapped bag of hamburger was unneeded as their was no guard dog, neither terrier or pit bull.

Once inside, he quickly examined the locker, and took pics with his cell phone, and then put it all back as it were, and beat feet.  On the way back some lucky pooch that came sniffing up to a fence got a hamburger dessert tossed over the fence.  And by midnight, he was finished with his criminal endeavour and back in his office.

And then the door opened, and Lucky Louie walked in with a wide smirk, and a narrow gun.  Behind him came four other guys, all toting heavy, even if none came up to Big Walt's chin, their guns gave them extra height.  It was funny that way, but six bullets in a revolver could add an easy six inches to a man's height.

Casually, moving his slab arm to the right, and suddenly Lucky Louie twitched.
"No, no."  And Walt stopped as Louie sent one of his goons to get the derringer up his sleeve.  One of the problems with being so big and scary was that they did not give him a chance.  The other dark suited goons spread out around the clock as it were, a two, and four, eleven, and nine who came up to him and relieved him of his derringer.

"Let's go." Louie gestured with his gun.  And for a second, no one moved.  These were not the sort of men to let a prisoner have free reign, but no one wanted to be the first in the range of Big Walt Jessam's ham-like hands either.  And for a second, Walt was tempted to sit back in his armchair, and dare them to move his substantial hull.  But, good sense kicked in, and he slowly stood, buttoned his jacket, and without doing the kicking thing, retrieved his hat by the front door after passing slowly among them like an iceberg amidst destroyers.

Louie clearly hated it, but kept his mouth shut, and in silence the quintet walked down to the waiting car where the eighth member of the band was waiting, smoking a cigarrette, and looking bored.  He blurted out a bit about 'what took them so long', until he caught sight of Walter,  and found his words dying in his throat as Walt smiled gently at him.

He got in the middle, and on both sides, a man pressed a revolver into his stomach.  Another car came up, and took the rest, and they drove out of the city down the near abandoned night roads.  The stoops and sidewalks had some folk out, enjoying the cool evening, eating ice cream, but the roads were empty.

And it was thus that they drove to Cooperton Heights, hung about the city on another tram branch like a wormy apple.  But this was a place for the swells, and the wannabee swells who had spent too much on a house, and so they all had 'plantations' regardless that real Plantation Money had long given up on that style of architecture meant to overawe slaves and keep the weather cool.  Now it was electric fans, and earthen homes, but the neo-swells were out of date.  It was not Old Money, or Mechinician Money, or even Factory Money, but more Store Money.

And the most plantationy of the Plantations, the one he'd scene in casual glances at the Society Pages came up at the top of a hill and a cul-de-sac.  The illegally burdened car drove in, past laughing couples and out back even as Walt realized his chances for survival had plummetted to zero.  There was no way the Mayor of the City was going to have him brought to his house if that self-same Mayor did not fully intend to have him wiped out, and put to good use as fertilizer in the back forty acres behind his plantation.

Walt snapped his neck, and tried to stay loose, in preparation, but the man on his right spoke.

"Easy or hard, friend. You can go screaming from a gut wound, or go see Jesus with a quick bullet behind the ear.  Its all the same to us.  And this car is nicely sound proofed."  Walt's shoulders drooped and he nodded in understanding.  The way the man spoke, he'd done both before.  Walt wondered how you got bored with torturing a man to death as the man on his right seemed to be, although the one on his left seemed a bit more jumpy, and quickly decided he'd just as soon not know.

They took him round back, and up past the first line of trees to the old barn, which was blocked off by a rusted gate.  The place looked unstable, gray and shiny in moonlight, and dark as the mouth of Hades in the shadows, as if teeth dissasociated from a body and able to eat a car were coming for him.

As he was drawn out, the feeling of doom, of surrounding Darkness grew worse, and he muttered a short prayer which got the others to jerk him up, and inquire into his talking.  But one of them told them to quit fooling around, and get him inside before one of the debutantes on the back porch saw him.

He opened his great maw to yell, and a clout of steel in a hard hand hit him on the back of the neck so that he stumbled dazed into the front door of the barn, rebounded off, and was shoved by two men in unison into the front room of the barn.  There he was tied down to a chair big enough for half his hamhocks, and as his mind cleared, he considered breaking the chair, clearing the ropes and going to town on the guards. But there were five of them, and three had small revolvers in their hands, and none stood closer than ten feet from him.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:14, Mon 20 July 2015.

Twenty minutes passed, slowly.  Outside the easy sound of relaxed male voices chatted, and then one and another turned away, and the door opened.  Two men walked in, one a solid side of beef enough to cause even Walt a second thought, and the other a swank, vest and three-button suit with gold lapels, and a fine Formby hat gracing his follicles while a cheerful smile lit up his pudgy face.

"Why what do we have here?" He asked jovially.

Walt Jessam sat stolidly, considering that if the mayor got close, just maybe he might be able to break free, and wring the man's neck like a chicken like his grandfather on the farm used too before he was gunnned down by the mayor'e lackeys.  But the mayor, although cheerful, seemed cognizant of the danger, and stopped a good fifteen feet away from the bound detective.

"Walter Jessam.  Also called 'Big Walt'.  I've heard good things about you.  You helped the police solve that serial killer case.  And you ran down that bank robber, what's what's his name."

"Saul Alinksky, boss." Said one of the men.

"Yeah, crazy man. Dedicating his bank robbing to Lucifer." The mayor paused.  "Now, I ask you, is that crazy?"

Walter well remembered the look in Alinksky's eyes before the man stepped off the roof of the Temblor Building.  A look of utter confidence that had changed to sheer terror in an instant before he fell to crash into the roof of Councilman Stevens' car.

After a deliberate pause, he nodded.

"Yes." In part to see where the mayor was going with this.  The mayor swung back upright, and turned to the others.

"Y'see, Walt, me and my boys here.  We don't have a problem with your helping the police get that sicko.  And if you shoved that Lucifer loving loon off the tower, why should we care?  Hunh, boys?"

He mugged for his crew, and they agreeably laughed in a smattering of low, knowing chuckles.

"See, Walt, can I call you that?"

"Its your house."

"Indeed it is. So, Walt, we are practical men.  We provide a service.  Both desires, things that the churches don't like, and also well, just grease to keep things moving.  And if someone like us, didn't do it, why you'd have carpetbaggers or the Italian Mafia from up north to do it.  And you wouldn't like that, no sir ree."

"What do you want, Mr. Mayor?" Walt said shortly, desiring to cut the sales pitch short.

"I like that. I do. Simple and direct.  A big man like you doesn't need to be clever.  He walks and people get out of his way."  A faint trace of jealousy crossed the mayor's face.

"Bring Sinclair Lewis to me."

"Okay."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Mmmm. Ok. Mikey, release the gentlemen in ten minutes, and call a taxi for him."

Fifteen minutes later, Walter Jessam was standing out by the entrance driveway as pretty young things and their dates in suits and bow ties came up, laughing and giggling while he stood there stone-faced, inwardly calculating, even as the taxi weaved its way across the city toward him.

In the taxi, he received a full helping of the news of the day, almost like an internet, from the garrulous good old lad driver, and the music was a full-throated gospel choir fit to shake the walls loose a capella with interludes of jazzy trumpet playing when the driver ran down his list of topics for the day.  There had been 'drunken morons play-acting at being duellists that the sherriff had broken up', and a new business had started up downtown, and was hiring.  The local sports heroes had lost out to the folks across the river.  It was a tune, a harmony, a weave of endless, gentle beauty.  Some folks had swum the Ohio River, escaping from the Northern Aristocracy, and their satanic mills, and the debt peonage.

"In five generations, why they'd have the vote.  Some people say we should welcome them in since they risked their lives from the Union gunboats, but although I salute their bravery, things is, they don't really understand here and now.  Not in their bones, not like you and I do."

Walt smiled and seemed to agree without actually ever doing so, and got out at his workplace and apartment.  The thing was, he understood the laws better than that taxi driver.  He had been born in a world where no one had a Home, a land to call their own, and here, in this alternate Forties, why he had found the closest thing to a homeland that he had seen.  But even still,not a day went by when he was perplexed at one thing or another.  And he could not say their customs were wrong when they were manifestly better than his, and he did not understand the purpose of half of them.

Inside, he got out a bourbon and poured himself a finger.  After being kidnapped, and threatened with death, implicitly, he could use a restorative.  While loosening his coat and tie, he prayed, and reminded, regretfully added enough water to the drink to bring it down to a beer, but with a fine taste to it all the same.  This he sipped as he leaned back in his chair against the wall, and kicked his wingtips off to expose stinky socks, and toes that could use a good wiggle.

The mayor had just as much offered him a place in the local machine, which to Walt's knowledge was a player, but not the sole player in local politics.  Charismatic personalities, and stubborn farmers with shotguns were other factors.  No one was going to run roughshod over the local farmers without getting buckshot in their car trunk as they retreated, if they were lucky.

And the mayor had shown that if he had yelled, why no one would care.  Which implied a very high degree of control over those in the mayor's pocket.  Which had to be few or they really would run this town lock, stock and barrel.  So, a chosen few who had sold their soul to the Mayor, and a larger group who were on the verge of doing so, and all surrounded by a much larger group of potential enemies/prey.

The problem with this analysis was that Big Walt had no friends with the large farmers, nor with any of the major BBQ party throwing politicos, like Mitchells, and Lee, and Jefferson of Low County.  But he had other advantages, he thought with a smile as he looked at his beat up briefcase for a second before taking out the cell phone on which he had a couple dozen pictures.  Too bad he had not been able to activate it while the mayor was speaking to him, that would have been a coupe main.