Still visibly flustered, Keiko steps back and points at Nadine. "I just asked her to tell me about a dream she had, and she started screaming."

She looks at Nadine as she calms a little, reassured by the others. "It must have been an awful dream. I think it might be related to what happens. She says she dreamed of a terrible war, and something haunting her. Some kind of ghost or specter."

"The haunting is what made her scream."

Cherub says,

"I don't have a picture but the Fool was pretty frightening."

He nods to Nadine and says, "Nadine. Good to meet you again."

Having been so close to Nadine when she killed gray, Nosferatu had no desire to rush into a room with an frightened or agitated Nadine. The others can be scared out of thier wits this time.

He started to think of how to approach a spatial manipulator. What exactly is a spatial manipulator?

Nadine barely noticed the others entering the room through the warp. She pulled her knees closer to herself and quietly started to weep. Her eyes locked into the distance yet transfixed on Keiko gave her an eerie aura. Nadine was drifting into a shock.

Cherub walked forward and put his hand on Nadine's shoulder.


(OOC: Attempted Healing... Shock is a physical effect as much as mental)

Upon touching her Cherub instantly felt the trauma her state of shock was causing. Nadine was literally losing her mind. Concentrating on 'healing' her emotional trauma Cherub felt that it was slowly having effect on her. Her breathing got steadier and calmer and her eyes seemed to register her surroundings again. Just before he finished a sudden sense of dread swept over him and he felt exactly the same like she did a few seconds ago. The sensation was so intense that it made him stumble and fall on his knees as his complexion became pale white.

(PM Courier)

Cherub choked and gasped,

"That's not the Fool. That's... a..."

Cherub paused for thought and added,

"...a Spectre I guess."

"What?" Keiko asks, torn between staying at Nadine's side and trying to deal with this new crisis.

"What's going on?"

"He speaks of it - the thing that haunts me in my dreams. It takes life just like that.", Nadine looked at Keiko again.

"Is that the one responsible for all this? What is going to happen to me? Will I die?"

Cherub answers,

"The last time around after the event you appeared to not have changed much. You could probably think of it like eruption."

"I don't think he, it, was responsible... but... how long has it been in your dreams?"

"No," Keiko says to Nadine comfortingly. "You're not going to die. We brought you here to save you."

"Save me from what? From... that thing that haunts me in my dreams?", Nadine looked at everyone present with hope in her eyes.

Then she looked at Cherub answering his questions, "I'm not sure... it started about a year ago. At first I thought it was just a nightmare but it got worse and worse. Lately it even managed to reach me during my wake hours. I had visions of - death and destruction. Monsters... impossible stuff. My boss said I should take a break and relax, go on vacation and recharge my batteries. But I was afraid to be alone.", she slowly started crying again.

Ronnie waited for the others to leave, keeping a casual eye on Callum. She wasn't particularly interested in the screaming woman. Sighing, she glanced at her watch, wondering how much longer they were going to question the young woman.

Cherub says,

"If you've been haunted by that Spectre for a year then you've been a part of this for a year. So has he for that matter."

"What were you doing a year... no. Let me guess, you were a hotel minion a year ago. So in other words... your memories have been tampered with."

"Wow, that's rough," Keiko says. She has the presence of mind not to get her recorder or pad out, but she silently mouths the word 'spectre' as if repeating it to herself so she'll remember.

"So this specter is real? Is it a person? A nova?"

She looks expectantly at the others.

"What's the story?"

Ignoring Keiko for the moment, Cherub considers then asks,

"How did you alter that spacial manip's memories and/or mind? Could you undo that on someone else?"

Callum had no gear to check and so stood at ease on the bridge waiting for the opportunity to vent his frustrations. They had a device that could peel time like a bannana and none would let him even attempt to save his wife. This is why people don't like novas, they distance themselves from what makes them human. At least the Teragen does so consciously and willingly. The others, they don't even realize that they are doing it.

Not quite sure what to do next Synner suggests,
"Why don't the rest of us pull back and get ready for the hunt? The crisis seems to have evap ... passed here."

Cautiously heading to Nadine's room, he sees that the others are alive, and Nadine calmed.

"Now that that has passed, can we go after Bastion. I feel the need to hunt."

After a long moment of silence, Keiko looks at Cherub closely.

"Actually...I think I can."

Her dark eyes flick from each person to the next. "Maybe even more than just her. I'll start with her though, just in case I can't do everyone..."

To anyone else watching, nothing seemed to happen. Had Frag been there, he might have seen Keiko's quantum signature flare briefly with unimaginable power as she...

...stepped 'sideways' out of the timestream for a moment to get an idea of what was going on. In higher dimensions, all of space and time could be perceived, though you still had to decide when and where to look. From here, time and the perception of time weren't the nice different things people assumed. Objective time and subjective time were related, but separate. Like a tiny universe in each person's mind; wristwatches to the Grandfather Clock of objective time...all set to the same clockwork, but each running at an individual pace.

And some weren't just individual. Some were, for want of a better word, broken. Several people in the room with her had discontinuities in their timelines. Places where subjective and objective didn't match up. Keiko couldn't really change people's minds directly...but she suspected that if she 'rescynched' the blacked out spots, it would undo the memory changes, just like when she'd resynched their memories from the previous time changes.

First Nadine...

Keiko entered a stream of warm and soothing timeless consciousness. She drifted for a moment breathing in the sensation of total freedom unhindered by time – this was what true eternity felt like. Closing her eyes Keiko’s consciousness expanded over the event horizon where time and continuity mixed into a huge swirling mass of chance and probability. Might and could-have-beens clash in a sea of accelerating and decelerating time and a huge storm was brewing above it all. Somewhere adrift of all the chaos a shining light cut through the overcast sky.

Keiko followed the light through the storm and left the unsteady seas of uncertainty behind her. Above the clouds she saw a bright shining shape which seemed to be the center of everything. It turned around facing Keiko showing his inhuman beautiful face which branded itself into her memory. Keiko couldn’t do much but fall in love with this creature which was more important than her own life. He reached out and touched her cheek in a fatherly gesture and pointed towards the horizon. Her stare followed his hand and looked into the distance – then she felt herself dragged away from her love and cast into eternity.

She forced herself to slow down and suddenly stood on a large green meadow. Keiko could feel the earth spinning at its incredible speed that wasn’t noticeable to the normal human. Everything was hyperslowed to the fraction of a second where every single iota of a motion was perceptible to her. In the distance she saw a huge building and she focused right through one of the many windows into a room where Nadine was laying on a cold metal bed. Above her a mask of death hovered and talked quietly to her. She stared scared to death at the floating spectre tears running down her cheeks. Suddenly the creature stopped and looked over its shoulder staring directly back to you… then past you. For a short moment Keiko had the feeling as if the creature had seen her but that was impossible. Sensing that this was just the exact moment she reached out with her mind and undid what the creature just had done to Nadine.

As soon as she had reached the critical moment Keiko was dragged violently away from the scenery losing her footing on the meadow. Everything turned upside down and the world accelerated to a blur. Within seconds she was drowned down a spiral unable to hold on to anything that could stop her fall. Just when she thought she had to throw up a hand made of light reached through the chaos and stopped her fall. She recognised his face smiling warmly at her and then he put her back where she was. Before she had realized what happened the world fell in place around her and she stood just there where she had started just a second ago – she was back in the room with Nadine and the others blinking a bit confused but strangely confident.

Nadine rubbed her temples as if she had the worst headache of her live than she opened her eyes and stared dumbfounded at Keiko. “I… I remember it… that thing… oh my god.”, she whispered as she realized what has happened over the last year. “Are you OC-Agents? What have you done to me?!”, she backed away from everyone looking determined to fight her way out.

In the meantime the ‘hunting group’ had assembled on the bridge of Newton’s ‘ship’. In the middle of the circle stood a holographic shape that you know as the Terat Synapse. Recognising the crew Synapse smiled and started with his report.

“Bahrain is as we always suspected a high security ‘prison’ for so called High-Taint-Novas. The truth is that Proteus is experimenting on Novas Utopia considered a threat to the public because of their extreme aberrations. Some of them have never seen the public after their eruption. Now the interesting part comes. The Uppies constantly talk about trying to help those Novas that are getting too tainted. Their Rashoud facilities collect data to help Novas understand their nature and control their powers. ‘Building a better tomorrow’ – you know the drill.”, Synapse smirked and continued, “The facility in Bahrain is not about finding a ‘cure’ for those too tainted – they are developing weapons to stop us. Especially those that prove to be quite resilient to most conventional means. I probed their files for anything related to the Singularity but haven’t found anything satisfying which makes me believe that the data is held in a mainframe that is not connected to the OpNet. If you can get there and connect it to the OpNet I can sweep the files in a matter of seconds and get the data we need. Lastly I want to add that I think the Singularity is not a Nova.”, satisfied with his report Synapse looked at Newton waiting for any further questions.

Newton nodded quietly and added to that, “And unfortunately Legion was one of the few who could warp right into the facility. What about you Synner – ever tried this stunt?”

Cherub responded,

"We've given you your mind and memories back I gather. I take it that you're not claiming to be a simple hotel clerk any more?"

"And Keiko, I'm pretty sure that something similar was done to me as well. I 'remember' it being with my permission, but I think we're to the point where that seems like a self serving implant on someone's part."

"Can you do your undo voodoo that you do on me?"

Payton bit his lower lip.
"Never done it. Never tried it, but I'm willing to give it a shot."

Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Synner didn't sound confident. He knew he was a competant, but he also realized he was no combat monster and not in the top ten Warpers in the world either.

"Does anyone know any other way into the facility? Anyone got a cousin or a friend who is with Proteus?" Ronnie asked, hoping that instead of relying one a warper 'willing to give it a shot,' they could walk in.

It's not that easy, Celeste reminded her. There are protocals, security arrangements.

So it's hopeless? We have to trust a warper who may or may not be able to do it? Ronnie queried.

Nothing worth having comes easily, Barbara interjected. I could be helpful, perhaps.

Let's see who else volunteers, first, Ronnie said, glancing around the room.

"So where is Legion?" Nosferatu said to Synapse. "Are you saying that he's in the Bahrain facility?" He wondered why they were going to ahrain when there was a sociopathic killer on the loose who would give the One Race no end of grief with the zips.

"If he is, we could 'convince' one of it's employees to leave a door open for us."

Synner looks at his wristcomp and gestures.

"I'm going to need a bit of a rest before we go. I've been flexing myself a bit and if we are going to hunt down Legion, or go to Bahrain, I would like to be fresh."

The warp opens and as Frag steps through, Synner announces,
"This is the hunting party, Jacob. The meeting has just begun."

As Synner opens his warp, the scene is one of the sea, as viewed from the deck of a very expensive looking yacht. The man who steps through appears nothing like the plain, short, pasty caucasian man from before. Instead, an imposingly built dark-skinned man comes through. He is bald but upon closer inspection it can be seen that he has no hair of any kind. His skin is a deep onyx and his eyes, though a different color than before still gleam with that same penetrating intelligence.

Over one shoulder is slung the biggest gattling canon most of you have likely ever seen up close and the other arm is holding a massive hardshell trunk the size of a large concert speaker. Across his back is slung a huge ammunition drum bigger than a couple of kegs put together. He is dressed in a sleek black combat weave tactical bodysuit which is further covered in pouches, clips, grenades and blades that would make Crocodile Dundee retire in shame. This nova is loaded for bear.

"How's the girl?" he asks nonchalantly. His voice too is different..a basso profondo more fitting to his current form. Setting down his loads effortlessly, the thuds with which they come to rest indicate they are far heavier than his ease would suggest.

Callum takes one look at the whole get-up and simply quips, "Compensating for something?"

The big man smirks and says in his best William Wallace impression (and it's pretty good),

"Not everyone c'n shoot bolts of lightning from their arse."

He adds in his own voice, "You can thank me later."

Keiko comes into the room and hesitates just inside the doorway.

"Looks like you guys are about ready to go. Listen, I just want to make sure I know...do you want me to help you with this Legion guy? Or should I stay with Nadine? I think she needs someone to stay...Newton's not very good company on his own. But freezing Legion might be the only way to catch him."

"Oh definitely come with," the big man booms. At first Keiko must wonder who the hell the new guy is, but his friendly smirk and glittering eyes give him away.

"She doing okay? Guess she didn't explode while I was packing..."

Keiko gives Frag a funny look. She'd assumed this was just another of these assassin's friends, but he seemed oddly up to date on things.

"Uh...I'm Keiko," she tells him uncertainly. "Hi."

Then she turns to look at the others once they've gathered, addressing Cherub in particular.

"I can try to do for you what I did for Nadine. Sorry...I just had to think about it. It was very strange and a little scary, what happened...but I think it's the right thing to do. I don't know how long this will last, so it may be our last chance."

She takes a deep breath.

"So who should I start with?"

"If you can freeze Legion, then by all means come along. Now what exactly is this other thing you are offering - this thing you did for Nadine?"

Synner suspected what it might be. If it went wrong, the team's mission was pretty much doomed, but it it was that important, did he want to have this unseen specter hanging over him?

Keiko looks at Synner again, answering before she really thinks it through.

"They had some kind of memory alteration at some point, and I can go back and undo it."

She frowns. It seemed to her that doing so ought to have larger effects rippling up to the present though. If she could do that, maybe she could do other things she thought she couldn't...

"If you mean that Omega altered my memories, I imagine I had better be 'worked on'. I can't have some random command having me warp the team into some Omega trap."

He doesn't look happy with the revelation, or the reality that he had better have his mind messed with again to clear up the first mess.

Cherub says,

"I'm reasonably sure my memories have been altered... supposedly for my benefit. The question is, was it with my permission or without it... and why?"

"Any time you're ready Keiko, I think I'm ready to find out."

Nosferatu was not sure he wanted to find out if his memories were altered. What would he become? Would he realize that he had always disliked Teras and that he was only a Terat because Omega planted it into his mind? Right now he was sure what he believed. If his memories returned, he might face a 'crisis of faith'. He would wait and see what memories surfaced in the others.

He smiled at Keiko. "I will wait and see what the others oncover first. Who is to say if the returning memories are good?"

"How could I forget a pair of eyes like those?" he responds playfully, before adding in a mock sigh, "Kids today...NTV has robbed them of any attention span."

"Well. Since I never officially introduced myself, you can call me Jacob, or Frag. Go ahead and jot that in your notebook if you want...you won't find anything under those names. If you still wanted an interview, up close and personal like, I'd still be happy to oblige you once the crisis here gets settled..." He finishes his reintroduction of sorts with subtle wink.

Ronnie considered Keiko's offer for two seconds. However, the risk of Keiko learning her secrets was too great, even if Omega had messed with her memories. And Ronnie was sure that they had. Why not? May wasn't the kind of woman you trusted, not without some kind of backup or secondary plan.

But it would be interesting to see what Keiko helped Malcolm to remember, if he agreed to it.