(From the earlier conversation between Tesseract and Wizard in Tess' room)

Tesseract sat in her room quietly as she pushed outwards with her power. Tendrils of quantum power snaked invisibly from her mind and slid slowly, lightly, across the edge of the spatial dampening field. She could feel the wards, and the death that waited behind them. This man James did not do anything halfway. She could also feel the cracks, the flaw the Wizard had pointed out to her. She worked slowly, carefully, to exploit that weakness.

There was a chime from the door and Tess drew back her "feelers." She rose from where she was sitting and went to see who was bothering her. Wizard stood waiting outside with a gentle smile. It broadened as the portal that served as the door opened and Tess smiled in return. "Wizard, Jane, I thought you were with Jager?"

"May I come in?" the soft spoken woman asked and Tess motioned for her to enter. She took a seat in the only chair in the room and Tess made herself comfortable on the bed. "I wanted to talk to you before we get any deeper into this 'conspiracy' Jager has us tracking. I haven't heard anything from you since the Alexandria incident and I was worried about how you were adjusting to your 'new' body. You seem to be adapting suprisingly well, are things ok with you?"

"Thats a loaded question Jane. Things are more stable now, but I am a changed person, and I don't just mean the gender switch. Actually, thats less of an issue than anything else."

Jane watched the young woman before her, as she spoke. Tess was holding something back, trying to hide or keep private some part of her ordeal. Normally Jane would let it drop, let Tess keep her secret to herself, but she felt it imperitive to know just what had happened to her. "Tess," she said. "Please explain. Transforming from one gender to the other is not a common occurance, there are psychological issues you can't even begin to understand, yet you seem completely at ease with the whole experience. I know something more has happened and I just want you to know you are safe with me. You can confide in me, I won't judge you. Do you understand?"

Tess nodded her head softly and took a deep breath before starting. "It was my duplicate, she went by the moniker Gateway. I can only imagine how Gateway felt, living her life, doing whatever. All of a sudden, Bang! She is trapped in the body of a man. No reason, no explanation, and no provocation on her part. Needless to say she was upset. She tracked me down through the dimensional barrier and dragged me to her world, demanding to know what I had done to her." Tears flowed down her cheeks as she spoke. Wizard, sensing Tess' pain wordlessly moved to sit beside her and placed a reasuring arm around the momentarily vulnerable young assassin. "Her world was a nightmare, Jane. I never would have imagined so much destruction was possible. They are farther into the future than we are and the entire world is at war with itself. In Gateway's world, all these predicitions of war people here have been making have come true. It started with Baselines against Novas. Unbeknownst to most of the world, the UN was getting help from an extraterrestrial source. When that secret got out, the whole world went to hell," She paused as Jane handed her a kleenex, waiting for her to continue. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at the woman giving her comfort.

"Gteway and I had similar beginings. She was a clone as am I, the difference being what we were programmed for. I am an assassin, she was programmed to be the perfect urban soldier. Anyways, we tried to undo what had been done but it didn't work. Gateway and I merged into one being. For some reason, I don't know why, I became the mind in control. There is no more Gateway. I mean, part of her is up here," Tess tapped her head. "She infulences me, suconsciously, but she doesn't exist as a separate entity anymore. I have learned a few things by merging with her, I can travel between worlds now, and I have better control of my powers because of her influence. I can even shift between sexes."

As she spoke, her features shifted and flowed. She grew a little taller, her shoulders broadened her facial features took on a more angular appearance. She sprouted a five o'clock shadow. As the transformation took place, her clothes shifted with her, Wizard had forgotten about her, his, Eufiber.

Wizard couldn't help but register suprise as Tess' form finally stabilized into the man she had first encountered in Alexandria. "How fascinating," she said, almost to herself. "How is this possible?"

Tess' form shifted once more into the woman that Wizard now pictured her to be. "I don't really know, but I do have some metamorphic abilities. I can biologically adapt to any environment I find myself in. Extreme teperatures, high pressure, even the vacuum of space. I think maybe that had something to do with it."

"So why not just stay in your natural male form then? Experimantation aside, why remain female?"

Tess started to regain her composure. She was not used to expressing her emothins and in her occupation, trusting others can lead to her death. Still, it felt good to unload all of this, even speaking it aloud made her feel better, less guilty. In response to Wizard's question she simply said, "That's Gateway's influence again. I have only had freedom for a little while, a few months. My creators tried to remove any emotional responses I may have had. To be the perfect killer. My gender, and indeed sexual drive, was irrelevent to me. Gateway had a lot more time to explore herself, to become a whole person. Where I never identified myself as either male of female, she had made that connection. When we merged, much of who she was, including her some of her sexual identity, was passed to me. Because of her infuence I am more comfortable as a woman now."

Jane smiled. "I understand now. I am sorry for your pain Tess, I never thought, do you like being called Tess? I just started calling you that because Tesseract was so clumsy to say all the time."

This brought a genuine smile to Tess' face. "Tess is fine, Gateway's real name was Teresa, so I think it is appropriate."

The conversation continued for some time, sometimes serious but most times, at Wizard's direction, light hearted. She could see Tess was feeling better, more whole. Their conversation was unfortunately interupted by a soft tone, and the sound of Mycroft's voice. "Forgive my intrusion ladies, but Jager is looking for you Wizard. He would like it if you could meet him in his quarters."

"Go," Tess said, seeing a familiar look in Wizard's eye. "I am alright now." Wizard got up, smiling, and headed for the door. "And Jane?" She turned back to look at Tess. "Thank you." With that Wizard headed for Jager's room excitement and aprehension her only companions.

He slowly grew aware that he had been dozing. This in itself is not unusual for most of the inhabitants of the planet. For this particular man, however, it represented a fundamental change in his life. While rest was ocassionally required, he rarely slept on any discernable schedule and never very deeply. His lifestyle simply hadn't allowed for that luxury. Now though, he rose slowly to consciousness for the depths of a warmth which pervaded his being, accompanied with a sensation he didn't recognize. After a moments reflection came the realization that it was unfamiliar merely by it's long absence. He felt happy.

Opening his eyes, his gaze immediately encountered his companion for these last several hours. At the moment she sat lotus style on the bed beside him, oblivious to his scrutiny, with a laptop of some type perched on her shins as she typed. He noticed her lips moved as she read passages under her breath, launched into a period of two-fingered typing then re-read the lines she just written. She would chew the inside of her lower lip thoughtfully, a fetching mannerism he found, for a few moments before using the backspace key to obliterate at least a portion of what she had written and start again. This process would repeat several times until, apparently satisfied, she would proceed to the next section to start the cycle from the again.

Her dirty blond curls, unfettered and utterly wild after the exertions of the last few hours, formed a nimbus of gold around her face and shone with the reflected light from her computer screen. Her eyes were, pale icy blue? They had been deepest sea-green with flecks of golden color earlied when had he stared into them from his position above her. He would have to ask her about that later. Or not. This moment felt rife with endless possiblities and he was loath to end it with mere fact and investigation. Lovingly, his eyes stroked her body and took in everything about her as new. The heartshaped face with softly diffused cheekbone, the slim nose set above lips slightly puffed after their most recent exertion. Lovely. Oh, there were thousands of his bethren walking the planet at this moment that more resoundingly exemplified beauty. Most of them were even woman. Beyond all of that, in her features he found that special something that he rarely saw in the others of his kind or baseline humans. A quality of luminescence that was physical while simultaneously transcending the merely physical. It occured to him that the insight had less to do with her than with his own perceptions changing.

She wasn't really that big he realized, though initially he had taken her to be only slightly less than his own height. That was an effect of both the heels she wore and of personality. Subconsciously you just perceived her as an equal and translated that into physical perception. That was part of the elusive quality that made her difficult to focus on although there was more to it. Being in her presence was calming, soothing even. Elizabeth, a new name now that he had crossed the boundaries beyond frienship? Elizabeth calmed people just by being in their presence. Odd, but it was only now the he thought about Jordan's ambivalent reaction to James. With James' level of taint, Jordan should have been shocked perhaps even repulsed. Yet he had taken it into stride without a blink. A conscious manipulation of Elizabeth's? Or subconscious wizardy effected by something she wasn't aware of?

Let it go for now, he thought to himself. No more questions until later and enjoy the view.

Continuing on, he noted her milky complexion flying completely in the face of the modern ideals of golden tone idealized by humans and exemplified by a disproportinately large number of novas. A lithe and compact build that hinted at the strength within her frame but did nothing to draw attention to it either. Fit by human standards, she wouldn't stand a chance against a nova with para-human strength. Or would she? One on one she would lose the contest but he recalled the manner she had twisted her body and flipped him to exactly the position she wanted. That he wanted as well to be honest. There was a sense of effortless grace in her movements that hinted at training that could be easily be adpated to endevors other than dance. She...

"Are you awake or not?" She glanced over at him and smiled brilliantly before returning back to her work.

"Awake, but enjoying the view." He sat up and slide closer to touch her as well as look over her shoulder and examine the screen. Reading the display he saw:

... Furthermore, I can read into your wording enough to know you either agree with me, or understand the point that was made and disagree with it. Difference can't be measured in terms of quantifiable amounts when mathematical principles are not involved. That was the point that I, in a moment of brevity, did not explain to you fully. But since it was sent to you, and not to the Forum, I shouldn't have needed to make it, since you already understood.

"Styles familiar. Is this from the forum?" There was something about the precise syntax that really did seem familiar.

"One of my personal accounts. From Ashnod, although I'm not quite certain what caught her eye in my original post. She paid me quite a compliment though."

"How so?"

"See here at the end," she said underlining a section of text with her nail.

He whistled softly. "That is quite a compliment. Especially from her, she suffers fool less willingly than I do. You might want to exercise care in responding, she can make a good friend or a very formidable enemy."

"Friends would be nice," Elizabeth said smiling. "We really don't have anything to be in conflict over."

"You agree with her views on seperation?" He was surprised. She smelled like cinnamon and ginger.

"No." She turned and kissed his nose softly before turning back to crafting her response. "I think she has a valid point, a lot of them actually, but novas would lose too much by seperating from the rest of the race. Her way would decrease the possiblitiy of the war but as a people it would cast us adrift in the universe without a foundation to build on. I think you were the one that noted the problems with building a nova society when, individually, we have so few superficial similarities. As a people, abandoning Earth and it's societies might well destroy novas."

"Superficial?"

"Most of the drives of humanity are based on basic needs that novas need not possess. I don't need to eat or sleep though I do both. Without threatening my abilities directly, or controlling quantum energy you couldn't hold food over my head as a threat. And that's just one need."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot lately as well. I'm tapped out of answers at the moment. Why that word superficial though?"

"Well... Theoretically any one nova can accomplish anything that is not strictly impossible. Quantum physics, right? Although the chance of a rain of frogs in Tokyo is highly unlikely it's possible therefore someone can or in the future will be able to do it. That means that any similiarities beyond something being possible are superficial. We can be anything individually."

"Any advice from the all-seeing wizard?"

"If, I told you then I'd have to kill you. That wouldn't do, I need you as a concubine."

She pushed the computer off her lap and twisted to straddle his lap while kissing him deeply. He thought of the advantages of kissing someone that seemed to know exactly what felt right and didn't need to breathe air on a regular basis. Later would be soon enough. Still, the others must be wondering what had become of them.

"Elizabeth," he asked hating himself just a little, "shouldn't be doing something productive?"

"Your call. We finish the business you foolishly allowed me to start," she said shifting her postition slightly and making him gasp with sensation, "and then we can get to work. Or you take an hours or so off and watch me dance for you."

"I love the hard decisions."

"Me too."

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 06-26-2001).]

A gentle chime rings out over the darkened room. A gentle light illuminates the figure sitting quietly in the lotus position on a simple mat in the center of the empty room.

"I am sorry to interupt James, but you need to be aware of certain updates."

James' eyes open slowly and a smile crosses his face. "It's alright Mike, I was having a pleasant discussion. Good Dr. Gutierrez is strongly of the belief that our current guests cannot be trusted to see my current project in the correct light. I am afraid that his experiences in Pinochet's employ did little to encourage his sense of the inherent good in our souls. However, I don't feel that his paranoia is appropriate on this occasion."

"I am glad of this. I have grown to like our guests. They offer a splendid array of data."

"I'm so glad. However, I don't know how two of our guests would feel about their pleasant excercise being broadcast. In the future, please access the concept of 'privacy'. But that later, what exactly did you need me to know?"

"Yes, I am sorry. Wizard has been spending much of the evening exploring the spatial stabilizing field. I suspect that she has found a way through it."

"Of course she has. The field is not a perfect defense. There is no such thing. The actual end result of the field is that we receive a warning and some time in which to prepare, that is all."

"Yes, of course. And a warning is the other item that I have to inform you of. The beta version of the precog-sensor is showing a high probability of a quantum incursion."

"Of course, it was too much to hope that we would have an entire evening without interuption. Details please"

"Eight novas, threat class variable but very likely insufficient given your current armament and the abilities of your guests. Utopian backing is definite, they apparently are unaware of Tess' presence."

"Interesting, it's been awhile since they tried to crash in on me. I wonder how my guests will want to handle this. Fight or flee? In conflict I will know them better. Please Mike, let them know about our visitors. Oh, and of course, how much time do we have?"

"Of course James, you have at least twenty minutes and not more than thirty before they try to pierce the field. They will succeed by the way."

"Thank you Mike. I'll prepare in here for their decision." With a jaunty whistle James walks into his armory. "What kind of mood am I in today?"

Jordan awoke suddenly to the screeching sound of an alarm blaring throughout James' high-tech complex. He bolted upright and looked around, visions of the place burning down around his head filling his mind. Seeing that everything was fine at least for the moment, he reached for the PDA on his nightstand. Everything, all his work from last night, was still there. "Mycroft...........Mike," he yelled over the ungodly noise assaulting his ears, "What hell is going on?"

Mike's synthetic voice could just barely be heard over constant clang of the internal alarm. "Intruders will breach the outer defences in less than 7 minutes. Prepare yourself."

"Intruders?" he yelled again reaching out to his Eufiber, which lept at his outstretched hand and began wrapping itself around his body, becoming that comfortable black bodysuit he's so fond of. He continued to gather up the rest of his gear and prepare. "What intruders? Who are they, and where are the others? And can ya turn off that damn alarm! My ears are killing me!"

The alarm emmediatly cut out with a defening silence. "Sorry about that," the computer intelligence said at a more reasonable decibel. "A Utopia strike team, 8 members is about to gain entrance to this facility. Jager, Tess and James are gearing up and preparing themselves in the recieving room, Wizard is, well, I not sure what she's doing."

"Utopia?! Oh crap, James is Teregen, almost forgot that. Still they're gearing up to take out a sanctioned team? Tell them I'm on my way!"

"Confirmed," was the only reply from the disembodied voice.

Jordan hurried through the halls of the complex while attaching his various "toys" to his Eufiber. Dammit, he thought to himself. They're gonna get us killed, or put us on the big U's most wanted list at the very least. What in hell are they thinking? An idea suddenly came to him and he smiled to himself with some pride.

He rounded the last corner and skidded to a halt just inside the doors of the reception room. The four of them were all there. He gasped at the sheer firepower lying around the room and in the hands of his companions. James stood decked out it what could only be Eufiber, with what looked to be dull red metal plates fused to various positions across his body. He had on a set of visor-like goggles and was holding what could only called a Big Fucking Gun. Jager had an unusual assortment of personal combat weapons and firearms which he was quickly sorting through. Tess had just finished strapping on her own assortment of techno-death, and Wizard? She just sat there, watching the others get ready with that soft, ever present smile of non-commitment that she always seemed to wear.

Jaordan stepped forward and cleared his throught to get the attention of those assembled. "What the fuck do you people think your doing?" he said with a force that none of those assembled were expecting from the young man. "Do you really plan on fighting with an 8 man Utoipa combat team? Put the damn guns away, this can be handled without killing."

The four of them looked at Jordan, Wizard's smile broadened, Jager had his game face on. James gave the boy a hard look, "Watch what you say boy, This is my home and they are about to tresspass. I am going to defend my home whether you like it or not." There was no humor in his voice, everyone assembled knew very well he was dead serious.

"Two minutes to entry," Mikes voicce intoned.

Jordan stepped up to the Terat and looked him straight in the face. "I can handle this." he said his voice even and calm. That feeling of control was settling over the young man, his posture straightened. Wizard stood at this point and slid her hand onto Jordan's arm.

"What makes you so sure Jordan, this is not a game or a training exercise," she said in a soothing tone. "What are you going to do?"

James and Jordan continued to stare eachother down for a minute before Jordan stepped back out of James' face and turned to regard them all. "It was what Tess said to me last night. She made me see myself in a different light. I am more than a good looking strongman. All of my attributes and abilites have been raised to superhuman levels, including both my intelligence and my abilities to relate to others. I'm going to convince them to leave us alone. Besides, we don't even know what they want, perhaps they know about James' little demolitions plot?" He shot the eyeless Terat a dirty look.

The five stood quietly for a moment, each in their own thoughts. " 30 seconds," Mike chimed.

"Ok," Jager finally said, "Let him give it a try, we'll save the firepower for plan B. You better hope this works Jordan, your ass is on the frontline on this one."

Jordan took a deep breath as the defences finally fell......

Pascal was not a happy man. He had less than twenty-four hours to put this team together and over half his first-list people were unavailable. He had only worked with Binary, Teigean, and Myopic before, and only Ryoso and Myopic knew each other. The rest were second stringers from Devries’ Rent-a-Thugs. Still, orders were orders and their intel didn’t appear shabby.
The mission was simple. Go in, neutralize five novas and extract two of them. The other three were ‘unimportant’. In the opposition, only two of them were serious threats, one was a wannabe, and the other two were scrubs. The traitor, Prodigy, was going to be a serious problem on his home turf and he had an impressive array of powers. Binary would move through the wall on this guy, shutting down his tech while Teigean would shut down his mind. They needed him alive. Tesseract was the next most deadly, but she was definitely expendable. Myopic and Blaize would deal with him. He would put Ladyhawke against this Jager yahoo, Seeker against his ‘sidekick’, and Thumper against Wizard. Pascal felt Thumper was reliable enough to keep Wizard alive and that would leave him able to move to however needed help.
The last member of the team was suiting up as Binary began his ‘ramping’ up exercises. Myopic stood nearby, prepared to open up the gate. Surprise was not an issue, as Prodigy’s defenses were believed to sense eminent intrusions. That was okay with Pascal. He was bringing more than enough firepower to this little dance.

Ladyhawke had a bad feeling about this. Pascal was a complete ass and what knowledge she had of him and his ‘operations’ didn’t make her feel any better. People usually hired her for her tactical expertise, not as a ‘gun-bunny’. If Pascal called her that one more time, she was going to have an accidental weapons discharge in his general direction.
Seeker, a member of her personal team, gave her a reassuring smile. They were getting paid a lot for this, and Seeker was looking forward to some real competition this time around. Thumper, the third member of her team was already clearing her mind for the fight. To bad doctors of horticulture didn’t get paid as much professional mercs, or Thumper would have been working in her garden full-time and have boxing as her ‘hobby’.
Pascal motioned Ladyhawke over.
He gave her the team assignments and she reviewed them. Nil surprise, and these people were just going to sit back and let Pascal and co. run right over them? A reasonable suggestion died in her throat under Pascal’s withering gaze.

‘Oh, yeah,’ she thought, ’this is going down twisted, all right. Better yet, Pascal was bringing his Warper, Myopic, in with them. If he didn’t get wasted in the first six seconds, she’d eat every spare clip of ammo on her.’ As she walked back, she gave the danger signal to her two teammates.

Binary signaled that he was ready and Pascal unleashed the mathematical equations in his head that allowed him to bend force to his will. Reality bent around him and protected him. He lifted off the ground and was ready to go. Ladyhawke drew her guns, a Remington 9000, a 10 gauge ‘door opener’ and the M202 Grenade Launcher. Myopic began to unravel the reality that separated them from the place they wanted to be. The crystal blue room appeared inside the rip in space and his team rushed through.

James stood there, arranging the light pattern in his latest work of art. He began bending the blue of the six-foot tall plant stem from blue to aqua. The microcosmic changes in the light held his attention as the warp gate appeared. Had he been aware, he would have been happy that the furniture had been rearranged so that no one stepped through the aquarium. Breeding new lines of radiant fish was so difficult.
Wizard slouched on the sofa, reading Prodigy’s thesis on the preeminence of nova-centered politics in the information age. His insights were as entertaining as his secret play on words. She was fighting down a chuckle. She casually reached out and tickled Jager’s foot.
Jager lay calmly on the long sofa, his head in Tess’ lap. His eyes were close and the visions of a certain dancer spun through his head. A contented smile graced his lips. His hands rested quietly upon his chest.
Tess rolled her head back; eyes closed as well. Her right arm languished along the top of the sofa, reaching out toward Wizard. Her left hand drew lazy circles through Jager’s hair. She found herself humming a tune from her so-called youth. It reminded her of happier times.
Alone of all the people, one figure seemed alert to the newcomers presence. Sitting on the ground in front of the sofa was a man dressed like a Harlequin. One knee drawn up to his chin while the other leg was fully extended. Jager’s hand rested casually against his shoulder and neck. Jordan knew that of all the people in the room, he was the only one whose mind was completely clear. He steadily eyed the newcomers as the poured in, ready to attack.
In just a moment, Jordan could feel them about to unload, but that moment skipped in time. Nothing happened and the assault team stood there, confused. Prodigy and his guests looked over at the invaders and smiled calmly. While the invaders shifted uncomfortably, no one else moved. Slowly, Jordan stood.

Vincent Carver walked two full blocks before looking back over his shoulder at the burning single story house. So far, no one had managed to make it out of the conflagration. Stupid fools, he thought smugly to himself Never leave a prisoner within reach of common household products. Vincent turned to continue his escape while pulling a badly mangled coathanger from his back pocket. He twisted and manipulated it while walking through the suburban neighborhood, he could now hear the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles and those people inclined to be up at 4 in the morning were flocking to watch the burning house, which by this point was completely engulfed.

Vincent, now several blocks away and three streets over, casually walked to the nearest parked car. A rather old Honda Civic in blue. Satisfied with his work on the barely recognizable hanger, he slid the aparatus down into the car door and popped the lock after a few seconds of effort. He slid into the drivers seat and proceded to hotwire his new car. As he drove away, Vincent patted his breast pocket. Yup, the disk is still there, should let me know what all this is about

-----------------------------------------

Gideon stared up at the man who, as far as the general public was concerned, was his personal bodyguard but in reality was his patron and mentor. The Preatorian was pissed, energy bled from his eyes and cast an eerie amber glow across the desk which Gideon was taking refuge behind.

"What do you mean 'They lost him'?" he growled in rage. "You do not just 'lose' a nova! Your men are incompetent Delphi, I want that adept found and I want him found now! If any of our enemies get their hands on that man, you are dead, do you understand me?" Each rise in his voice was punctuated with a rise in the intensity of the energy being emitted from Praetorian's eyes. It was all Gideon could do just to nod his head in understanding, never before had he see the man so angry. "Good," was all the powerful man said and with that, he walked out of the room. Delphi imediately grabbed the phone......

[This message has been edited by Atwight (edited 06-29-2001).]

In those few seconds between the fall of Prodigy's defensive shielding and the warp opening he managed to make contact. He still wasn't use to the whole transmit and recieve radio signals deal, but he wasn't going to balk at the discomfort considering the situation. The moment he found the right frequency he heard the Foundation's standard continual contact auto-message. Subvocalizing his clearance code, he requested Bridget contact him asap. Less than five seconds later he heard that same reassuring voice he'd come to love in his brief time with his current employer. "God Jordan, where the hell are you?! I've been trying to establish contact with you for over 24 hours. Both Renaud and you father are having kittens here."

"It can wait Bridge, I have a situation here. I'm going to broadcast everything that I hear and say in the next few minutes, record it all."

"What? What the hell is going on? Jordan? Jordan!"

"Just do as I say and I'll explain later, 'kay? Now quiet."

Jordan couldn't help but smile beneath his comedy/tragedy mask at the confusion of the intruders. Just as Mycroft had predicted, eight of them. "Greetings and welcome. My name is Harlequin, can I offer you something to drink?"

Their leader, a broad shouldered, glowing brute of man hovering a foot off the floor slid closer to the costumed young man. "This is no social call, we are hear to apprehend James Meehan, aka Prodigy. Do not interfere and there will be no trouble."

Jordan shited his weight slightly as Pascal looked pointedly at James. "Really," he stated. "Well I'll be more than happy to comply as soon as you identify yourself and the authority you work for. Of course, identification will be required to validate your claim as well as a search warrent, arrest warrent or extradition order."

The room went deathly silent and all eyes fell the two speakers. No one, neither the antagonists nor Jordan's companions were expecting such...diplomatic professionalism. The silence continued for a full two minutes as Pascal and Jordan eyed each other. Jordan took stock of the entire team before him, they were fidgity, restless. They expected action and violence and were greeted with diplomay, it put them off their game. Pascal was angry, it was in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Jordan had gotten under his skin.

"I am a duely appointed officer of Project Utopia. I have the authority and the ability, granted to me by both Project Utopia and the UN, to take Mr. Meehan into custody. If you and your friends continue to interfere in this matter, you will be charged with obsruction of justice. I hear Bahrain is lovely this time of year." Pascal smiled smugly at the black and white clad youth before him. This little twit is stalling he thought, Sorry boy, no cavalry is coming to save your pathetic ass.

"I don't think so," Jordan stated calmly. "The way I see it, you are either acting without offical sanction, or this is a black book operation. Otherwise you would glady be showing me reams and reams of legal documentation, proving you are who you say you are, you have legal sanction to be here and, well, need I continue? As it is, you are guilty of tresspassing, breaking and entering, impersinating an officer. Do you want to add assault, kidnapping and possibly murder to your list of no-no's here?" The strike force was definitely uncomfortable now, The large brutish woman and the young lady with the third eye in her forhead both kept glancing at a third woman, tall and leggy, with shimmering brown hair. She acknowledged the slight glances as she stared long and hard at the man in charged. Subtly, unconsciously, her hand slid over one of the wicked looking pistols strapped to her side. Jordan noted it all silently as he continued. "Or perhaps you have nothing to do with Utopia at all? Tell me, is this some personal vendetta? How do you think Utopia's going react to unsanctioned use of their identity and infulence? How do you think the Japanese government is going to respond to this little venture? Your on thin ice here, buddy. My advice to you is get out. Now. While you still can."

Rage flashed accross Pascal's face. "How dare you, you little whelp!" Bingo, just where I want him Jordan thought. "Blaize....." pascal started.

"Stay right where you are," Ladyhawke finished. In one fluid motion, she had drwn her guns moved accross the room and had them pointed at Pascal's head before anyone else could react. "Neither I, nor Devries likes to be lied to Pascal. You got some personal shit to work out, fine by me. You don't play it straight with the agency, you break the contract. I suggest you have Myopic open another gateway and get your asses out of here. Your out gunned and out classed."

"Ladyhawke, you traitorous bitch," he bellowed, then looked around the room. Ladyhawke still had her guns pointed at his head. Thumper had moved behind Teigan and Blaize and had a restrainingg hand on one soulder of each of them. Seeker moved beside Binary, making her presence known. James had his BFG pointed at Myopic, Jager and Tesseract both had firearms pointed where they felt the most damage could be done. Wizard flipped the page of the thesis she had been reading, seeing that the couch was now free, she stretched herself out to get more comfortable. Slowly, the rage passed and he saw the dangerous predicament he now found himself in. "Myopic," he barked. "Get us out of here, now."

Several seconds later, the three mercinaries looked at their former targets. "Well," Jager started. "That was fun!"

[This message has been edited by Jordan Rossi (edited 07-01-2001).]

“…fun. So, Ladyhawke, is it?” continued Jager slowly reholstering his gun. “Welcome to ‘terrorist’ central. As you can see, we have all been plotting the demise of ole PU and other such nonsense.”
Jager walked over and put an arm around Jordan’s shoulder. Tess remained still, her guns covering Ladyhawke and Thumper. James was already in cyber-telepathic communion with Michael and Wizard was finally finishing her book and starting to sit up.
“Good work, Harlequin,” Jager said to Jordan, “Now, why don’t you slip into something a little more comfortable.”

“So, where do we go from here,” Ladyhawke interjected. She was somewhat confused by the dynamics of the situation. Prodigy and Jager she knew by reputation. Tesseract was more myth than real. The Harlequin and the girl on the sofa were unknowns, but seemed to be equally important in whatever her team had stumbled into. Both Prodigy and Jager seemed to be more in control of the situation. That wasn’t very surprising, considering what she knew of them, but the fact that they where working together was…uncomfortable. She had assumed that they played on opposite sides of the street.
Tess and Harlequin were definitely playing follow the leader on this one. The unknown girl, though, was something else. Prodigy moved with respect around her and Jager kept himself open for her input from her. All the while, she seemed reluctant to make a move. Very curious.

Jager smiled, but it wasn’t overtly predatory so she allowed herself to relax a bit.
“Actually, if you and your team can wait in another room for a minute, I would be more than happy to discuss this matter with you.”
As he finished, a wall section to her left ‘washed away’. The new opening revealed a rather large workout room. Ladyhawke perked up an eyebrow but got no further explanation form Jager. She led her team out and the wall rose up behind them.

Prodigy nodded to Jager, who turned to Jordan and whispered in his ear.
“Jordan, would you please cut the connection to the Foundation?”

Jordan grinned sheepishly, still pleased with his outwitting the pseudo-Utopian agents. Slowly, his uniform shifted back to his basic black. The post-adrenalin shakes washed over him. Wizard came up to Jordan’s other side as he signed of with Bridgett.

“Never doubted you for a second,” Wizard told Jordan.
Tess spun her weapons back into their concealment and Prodigy’s weapon had simple vanished. As a group, they resumed their seats.

“I have dealt with the micro-sensors Binary left behind,” James began. “Now, we can feed them a little disinformation to give us a head start.”

“Fine then. Team, if I may call you that?” Jager scanned his companions. “I have two routes we can take. The first one is fraught with enough complications to make me not want to take it, but I figured to throw it out and see if any of you could change my mind.”
“Jeremiah Scripture has been a conduit between Mal and a shadowy group of ‘others’ for several years now. Until recently, I had thought him to be part of their system, but certain events have given me reason to believe that he may be asserting himself and that he may be in opposition to these ‘others’. Worse, these others may have been the forces behind a plot within the Teragen to remove Jeremiah completely.”
“Prodigy, back me up on this, if you can. I theorize that Scripture was initially supposed to keep an eye on Mal, but the two became lovers. Mal has won Scripture over to his side as witnessed by his increased involvement within the sect as of late. Since I believe that he knows a great deal about these others, they have decided to remove him, if possible. Likewise, Scripture can’t go to Mal with all of this due to the personal damage it might cause him. Scripture is caught in a difficult situation and might be willing to help, but the ‘others’ have had time to cover some of their tracks are most certainly looking for an attack from that area. Personally, I don’t want to play this card just yet.”

“Option Two involves two novas named Gideon Delphi and Praetorian. Delphi works through Delphi International, a major player in the Genetics and Biotechnical field. He started out in 2003 with a small capital investment and some promising ideas. Needless to say, he immediately ran into serious opposition form Utopia. By 2005, he was ready to go under. Then, his troubles began to fade away. He got some ‘lucky’ breaks and turned his corporation around. He soon earned a reputation as a man who could bend ways around those pesky Utopian regulations and a developer of cutting edge genetech. Until a few weeks ago, I had nothing illegal on this guy. Then, I stumbled across one of his secret labs while helping Atwight out. Seems he is cloning select Utopian novas for his own personal use. Better yet, he has a ‘perfected’ brain taping operation, so he can fast grow a clone and feed complete memories into it in a manner of weeks. As good as Delphi might be, he isn’t that good. Someone has been feeding him some pretty hot tech.”
“Praetorian acts like Delphi’s bodyguard, but has been seen to operate among novas of the highest caliber. Nothing is known about the man. All I do know is that Atwight blanched at the mention of his name and warned me off of him.”

“That is a warning we should all take,” interjected Tess.

“Having been warned off this guy and having him know that I have been warned off makes him my best target. I have let this matter lie quietly for some time. Now, it is the time to act. I have a list of Delphi sites, some of which a supposedly secret. If we used Ladyhawke’s team as a distraction, we could penetrate one or more of those facilities and start piecing together what his ‘masters’ are up to.”

“Okay, which one is it?”

“Ah, Jager?” questioned Jordan. “Whom are we going after, anyway?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry Jordan and Tess, but we are going after the most dangerous people on the planet. We are going to track down a network, if there is a network, of pre-event novas. If they exist, we are going to try and figure out what they are up to and stop their plans if necessary. Bold enough for you?”

Vincent tossed out his old clothes and make up/disguise kits as he checked his handywork in the mirror. A slight adjustment to the nose and gotee and he was ready to go. Not as good as shapeshifting, He thought But it's still damn fine work if I do say so myself. Upon exiting the washroom of the Seattle bus terminal, Vincent was pleased to find the place almost completely deserted. He checked the brand new PDA in his hand for the directions again and headed out catch a cab.

During the brief cab ride, Vincent again went over the information on the disk. Why, in gods name, would Gideon Delphi want to kidnap me? He thought quietly to himself. Delphi Industries and Carver/DePaul have never been in competition with each other, and I have no dealings with this guy, so what could he possibly want. He was still mulling over the possibilities as the cab pulled up to an unassuming brownstone in a quiet, average neighbourhood. He paid the cabbie and went around to the back, as instructed.

--------------------------------------------

Walt sat expectantly in the dining room turned office of his new Seattle base of operations. He didn't like having to pull up roots and was still pissed about having to give up his cafe hidey hole. His last thought before this new business walked through his door was to charge Meehan for his moving expenses and trouble.

Walt scrutinized the young man who entered his office accompanied by his new security. The man looked to be in his mid-to-late 20's with dark red hair and gotee. He was well built, either he worked out or had nova strength, Walt wasn't sure His eyes were vivd green and depite his unassuming clothes and demeanor, they betrayed a keen, observant mind. Walt glanced at his guards and they signaled the okay, he was unarmed. "Manuel, we finally meet in person. Why are you here."

'Manuel' sat in one of the rigid wooden chairs across from the diminuative nova. "Can we speak in private?" he asked. Walt waved his guards out and instructed them to close the door behind them. He then turned his attention back to his guest. "Thank you," Manuel continued. "I need your expertise, Walt. I need access to files and I know you can help me."

Walt raised his eyebrows, "And this is why you needed a face-to-face? Come on, tell me what's really going on."

Manuel paused to collect his thoughts before begining. "Eight days ago, a friend of mine was kidnapped. He has since escaped from his captors and has hired me to find out who was responsible and why. I know who it was, I need to know why."

"And," Walt said. "Who are the people involved."

"The person responsible is Gideon Delpi," Walt raised his eyebrows but remained silent. "My friend is Vincent Carver."

"Heir to the Carver fortune? Prime stockholder in Carver/DePaul? Why would the owner and CEO of a genetics research company kidnap the owner of an appliance/home electronics manufacturing company?" Walt queried. "It seems like a risky maneuver for someone like Delphi to be involved with."

"I know, That is just one of the things that's so confusing. There is no apparent motive either. No one was informed, no ransom demands were made, and he wasn't harmed. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme of reason to this. That is why I've come to you. I want to crack Delphi Inc.'s computer system. There has to be some record of why this all went down."

Walt was silent for a minute. He knew what the answer to his next question was going to be, but decorum dictated that he ask anyways. "So why come to me? If this is a simple hack, anyone could do it and you wouldn't need to meet like this."

Manuel closed his eyes, Walt knew what he was going to say already. "You have a backdoor in the Delphi system. I figured asking you to do this over the phone or 'net would have been disrespectful. I know I'm asking for a lot here, I'm willing to pay."

"What makes you think I have a backdoor?"

"A company called Cerebrus Security designed their computer security. I know, through various means which I will not divulge here, that you have your hands in that company. When Delphi came along, I'm sure you nearly wet yourself at the opportunity. Any computer specialist in their right mind would have done the same thing."

Walt smiled a sly grin. "You do your homework. Okay, you've been a good associate. This will cost though, and cost you big. Come on, lets finish this in my workshop."

James smiled inwardly, Jaeger might not have the raw intellect to play the game at his level, but his expertise in certain areas made him a formidable force. No wonder Wizard was attracted to him, perhaps she could see through the fields that Jaeger had about his person that James could not pierce. Rossi needed to be dealt with gently. James had gotten over the meloncholy that had afflicted him earlier. Rossi's earnest young self righteousness was now just pushing the wrong buttons. Dangerous buttons. 'He was so impressed by that phallic little ridiculousnous that I wielded when the invaders showed up. I wonder how suprised he would be if he found out the deadliest weapon I possess he would take for a handkerchief?' Threats should be left for a later date at the very least though. His investigation into Tesseract and her/his clouded history revealed one undeniable fact, she could kill him very easily, and more importantly, without a seconds moral quandry.

"More than bold enough sir. I am still a might curious as to why you chose to include me in your little hunting party. I would think that you would realize that I would very likely cooperate with this nasty little organization that you mention. If our desires meshed of course."

"That is a very strong if James. Of course, my major reason for believing that you would cooperate with us is one undeniable fact. You have demonstrated a strong dislike to being a pawn and we both know that if this cabal exists that is all they would see you as. You're the new kid on the block. In addition to that, your problem with taint shows you to be clumsy."

"In their eyes." Anger touches his voice.

"Of course, their eyes." Jaeger had listened to James long enough to start to recognize that while he could hide his emotional tone easily enough, language clues gave away his emotional state. A valuable bit of data to have.

Wizard decided she had been quiet long enough. "There are other reasons of course. You're a Terat, and honestly one of the more 'friendly' ones. You're not a manipulator like Orziaz, you're not as bound by doctrine as Ashnod, and you're not a psychopath like Geryon. You have contacts within the Teragen but you're not hung up on the fact that we are not Terats. It offers us a greater search area." Her soothing tone was undeniable.

The group lost a bit of the tension that had built up, well not all of them. Meehan still stood warily. His voice still hinted at a Cyrillic quality. Wizard saw the waves of her calming influence crashing like waves on a break against him. Interesting.

"Thank you madame. I appreciate the sentiment. And the honesty. I was just positive that you hadn't been attracted here by my scintillating personality." He bowed and his voice returned to normal, well as normal as his tone and accent shifting voice got.

Jordon shifted uncomfortably. He wasn't fond of the Terat philosopy and finding out that James' membership in that group was one of the reasons for his involvment was mildly distressing. "Ok then, how about you show us some of your invaluable 'contacts'?"

"But of course. This way please." James turned and walked through a wall and led the group into his media center. Displays of weather information, stock prices, news reports, entertainment channells, nearly every source of data that was channeled through the OpNet or the airwaves was represented.

Tess grimaced. "How do you stand this cacophony? The volume isn't bad but its a garble, even to me."

"Practice, skill, determination, perhaps just a touch of insanity."

"Yes, perhaps." Jordan said as he took in the scene. 'Jeez, this was the guy who took Cornelius to task for cliches. This looks like something out of one of those Jim Bond flicks my dad likes so much.'

"Alright then. Here is what I can offer you. First, Mako, he is my street contact in the Primacy. He's a taint ridden psychopath whom I suspect has developed some nasty culinary habits. However, he is easily intimidated by the right combination of bravado and threats. He's also an extremely bad liar. Chablis, she is my main lady in the Casablancas. Nowhere even near trustworthy but luckily she is absolutely frightened of me. She can detect taint and is convinced that I am more dangerous than I let on. Walt isn't a Terat, you and Jaeger met him. He's a cyberkinetic of high caliber and I find him to be exceptionally usefull. He is expensive though. Now, these aren't all of my contacts but I think these are the ones to have the most data about the given situations. Mako knows about anything that happens in the dark rooms and back alleys of the world, Chablis knows about the realm of the rich and famous and Walt can get it if it's on a computer. So, the question is, to whom do you want to go to?"

It was still dark out and the LCD computer screen was burning Vincent's eyes. He was becoming frustrated by his inability to put this puzzle together. The information he and Walt had liberated from the DI computers was only telling him so much. Okay, he thought wearily. Lets go over this one more time. Delphi International, a genetics and biotech developement firm, is secretly perfecting nova cloning and braintaping technology. Scary. He involunarily shuddered. Along comes this guy, whats his name again? Oh, here it is. Andrew Sommerville. This Sommerville guy breaks into one of Delphi's research labs and makes off with a clone. Apparently he had help in this from a shadow ops specialist known only as 'Jager'. This sends the entire organization into a tizzy and all of a sudden Utopia gets all jumpy as well.

He stood up and paced the room. When he got to the bedroom door of the hotel suite he could make out the silhouette of the young man he picked up for his evening entertainment. God, what am it doing, stressing myself out at four in the morning when I've got this gorgeous young creature sleeping in my bed. No, come on Vince, this is important. Okay, so where was I? oh right. He continued his pacing. So Utopia is all jumpy and demanding answers. Then Delphi is raided again, only this time they manage to keep it under wraps. 8 more clones go missing. This time it seems, someone of power and influence is responsible. Only a name though, Atwight. I'll have to check this guy out. Next, Delphi and his bodyguard, some yahoo named Praetorian, get themselves involved with a plot to eliminate a Terat named Jerimiah Scripture, I'll have to ask Raoul about him, and they are continually looking for Jager, Sommerville and this Atwight guy. Next, they kidnap me. So how do I fit in to this drama? I don't know any of these people and as far as I know, there is no connection between me and any of them. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Maybe there's no connection, maybe they wanted me for some other reason....... His eyes lit up and he ran back to the computer, his fingers flying over the keys.

Six hours passed and Vincent pushed himself away from the computer. He frowned at the screen and rubed his eyes. So, Sommerville is a big muckety-muck in the genetics engineering field, bet most people don't know he's a nova. He has to be, no scientist in his right mind would break into a highly protected lab like that. Jager, you are an interesting case, aren't you? he smiled momentarily. A hired gun and 'ruthless' killer giving such caring and heartfelt advice to a beleagured wanna-be Terat with a baseline kid, who would of thought? And this shit on Atwight.......Damn, this is the big leagues. He stretched and moved to the little bar in the corner of the suite. rumaging around in the small fridge, Vincent removed 3 small bottles of Vodka and a jar of olives. "Yum, a breakfast of champions," he said quietly to himself. He poured the alcohol into a glass and took a swig.

Movement from the bedroom drew his attention and he walked over to the doorway. "Mornin' stud," he said to the young man looking around the room with that groggy expression of not remembering where he was written all over his face. awareness quickly came back to him and he scrambled to get out of bed.

"Shit man, I didn't mean to fall asleep. Let me just grab my clothes and I'll be outta here," he said as he rushed around the room, gathering up his clothes from where the y landed the night before and trying to throw them on at the same time.

Vincent watched him with a smile as he leaned against the doorframe. "Relax kid, I'm not pissed. Take your time. You want a shower? I can order breakfast if your hungry." he said. The young man stopped and looked at the man in the doorway, his tension draining out of his body.

"Thanks. Don't want to walk around smellin' like an orgy," He smiled, dropped his clothes and headed into the bathroom.

Vincent chuckled and walked back over to the computer, popping a couple of olives into his mouth along the way. There's only one way I'm going to crack this code, he thought. He sat down at the terminal and put aside his "breakfast". Vincent closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply. He concentrated on what he wanted, the information he sought. Slowly he opened his mind to the voices. They were always there, whispering in the back of his mind. He had learned not only to ignore those voices but to use them as well. The cacaphony of billions of minds all clamoring for attention, to give advice, to teach, and to impart their wisdom bombarded Vincent but he held firm. His will became iron as he pushed his desire out into the mass of thought. Seconds seemed like hours as he focus and channeled the knowledge and information he wanted and brought it to his conscious memory. Upon obtaining what he needed from the mass of thought, Vincent clamped mind down on the crowd in his mind and, with his will alone, forced the voices back into a controllable whisper.

New-found understanding exploded in Vincent's mind as he bent to the task of unraveling the code of the game. He picked up a pen and pad of paper and began to write as he scanned the screen in front of him. It was complex and involved, so many players and separate conversations, it was difficult at times to sort out who was who.

Twenty minutes later, Vincent paused to show the young hustler out the door and he resumed his task. He had translated the majority of the coded messages and was becomming impatient. Flipping through his translations, he began to sort out the different conversations and take note of the ones he felt were pertinent to what he was loking for. Slowly, as he absorbed the messages and information contained within, a cold dread began to overtake him. This was much bigger than he had first thought, and he had done exactly what his abductors had hoped he would. He got and paced, trying to think of a solution to his predicament. Dammit, I gotta stop underestimating people. Okay, knowing what I now know, the most obvious course of action would be to track down Atwight and get the answers for myself. But thats exactly what they want me to do. My god, I can't believe I didn't see it before, escaping was way too easy! Vincent bit his lip as he paced around the room And then there's that Jager guy and his friends, searching for that per-Galatea nova conspiracy, maybe I should contact them? No, thats too suspicious. They would have no reason to trust me, I have to do this on my own. The next most obvious thing for me to do would be to go after that genetic sample they took of me. They will probably expect me to do that once they know I'm on to them, but at least it will give me some time before they catch up to me. Vincent gathered up the few things he wanted to take with him, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. I just hope I haven't found all this out too late.....

MISSION START: +21 HOURS

Location: Somewhere in Montana, U.S.A.

Tesseract and Jager stood on the catwalk and stared in awe at their surroundings. An enormous shaft, at least a hundred feet across, burned into the bedrock beneath the Delpi complex and extending at least a mile downward as well as a quarter mile upwards above their heads. Lining the walls of the shaft were transparent lozenge shaped tubes of some gelatinous substance. And within each tube was a bald humanoid form.

“Sweet Christ,” Jager swore. Then louder, “There must be thousands of them.” The sheer extravagance of that many clones, hybrids and experiments was one thing. To realize that each was potentially equal to a nova in power was, well, daunting fell far short as a descriptive. This was not what they had come for.

“Two thousand four hundred and fifty,” spoke Tesseract calculating the apparent surface area absently. Space and relationships were her specialty and the answer came intuitively from her subconscious. “Assuming the shaft is actually filled to capacity. This is nothing like the facility I was birthed in. Now what do we do?”

That was a very good question. Entering the facility by stealth, by all reports a lone low-level bacteria research station in Montana, their mission had been to access the Delpi’s secure network using Tesseract’s briefing codes, then insert one of James’ toys to allow the cyber-geek Walt to access the system remotely. Everything had actually gone according to plan with zero casualties and target acquisition within 14 minutes and 32 seconds of entering the complex. He knew they should have bailed out immediately but the urge to perform a personal recon had been too alluring and Tesseract, in her female persona, was a consummate professional. With their skills, knowledge of the security systems and, when necessary, her ability to bend space… Well, getting deep into the complex had been almost too easy. That’s when James’ had relayed the message from Walt concerning of a number of anomalies.

He had done the preliminary sweeps of the complex structure and found no ties to the local power grid for the secure lab buildings and no internal power systems that could handle the requirements of even the modest facilities present. And the most damning fact was the air movers surrounding the admin buildings. There were capable of supplying hundreds of times the air volume needed for fifty complexes of the size of this one. That’s when Tesseract had voiced her own concerns.

Hard science was not his forte, but Tesseract’s male persona had different training. She/he noted that the labs were pristine. Not orderly but absolutely spotless. Something was fishy with the whole set-up and by removing the cover plates on the ventilation failsafe mechanisms they quickly discovered what it was. Although all of the equipment required by federal law for protection was in place none of it had any signs of ever having been used. Everything was absolutely immaculate!

Acting on his intuition, and with Walt’s assistance in cracking the security logs, they quickly discovered that there was little or no traffic through the lab complexes over the last 30 days. The admin buildings on the other hand showed many times the normal volume of traffic, including the presence of Gideon Delphi and his ever-present body guard three times in the last week alone.

They knew their suspicions were correct when they attempted to penetrate the admin buildings and quickly realized the security systems were state of the art and showed signs of a lax regard for the well being of uninvited guests. Nerve gas, electrified corridors and, deep in the complex, hard mounted and water cooled gatling guns. If they were loaded with spent uranium rounds then this system was designed to stop any frontal assault short of Divis Mal himself. What it wasn’t designed against was a nova capable of bending space to her will and a master tactician allied with a man that could make computers dance to his whim and another that was the, THE, most wanted man on Project Utopia’s hit list.

Only 68 minutes and 12 seconds after entering the building they discovered the lower levels of the complex and found the single elevator to transport them into this utterly fantastic and equally horrible nightmare of a scene.

‘Clones, clones everywhere,’ thought Jager absently, ‘and not a single idea what the hell is really going on.’

Then they heard the sounds of clapping from above.

‘Well,’ thought Jager absently watching Praetorian descending from above under his own power and clapping mockingly, ‘at least Elisabeth is safe.’ The use of Wizard’s real name brought a tight smile to his lips as he evaluated how to best eliminate this new obstacle.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Location: Tokyo, Japan

The dazzling array of displays fed a seemingly endless stream of data to Prodigy at a prodigious rate. Ever the glutton, he took it all and fed it through his quantum-enhanced brain to process it, distill relevant data and analyze what suited him. He was already impressed with the efficiency of The Team, as Jager had called the mercenaries. Idiots willing to squander their divinity in exchange for blood money more like! Nonetheless, they were efficient and had moved against their designated targets with a business-like precision.

The most interesting part was that shortly after the attacks began, some planted devices he created while others were direct assaults he coordinated sitting in his web of displays, a number of anomalous things occurred. Bahrain became the site of a series of quantum fluxes indicative of warps and teleports either to or from that site. This information he acquired through the monitoring equipment he had planted via a nova shape shifter disguised as a farmer shortly after he had left Utopia. Even then he knew there was something amiss with the Bahrain ‘Rashoud Facility.’ Too many coincidences occurred in the region for all to be as it was advertised.

Another aspect were Michaels reports of a marked increase in encrypted OPNET communications. With the plethora of encryption software in the world being used for everything from telephone communications to safely trafficking in illicit images this was not unusual except for the tell-tales the AI had been specifically instructed to watch for from specific servers and locations. Most interesting of all was that the Team Tomorrow department wasn’t cut in on any of this until five hours after the affair began and just after the majority of idiots with whom he graciously shared the planet with were beginning to notice something was amiss. Most interesting.

‘How ever did Wizard obtain her information,’ he wondered to himself, ‘regarding Proteus operations?’ Originally he had been skeptical of her information and only acquiesced at Jager’s insistence. He had promised himself that he would give this relationship an honest effort and had done so despite his misgivings. After all, he had been relatively safe which is more than any of the others could say. Although Utopia had attempted to breach his security again, twice, they had failed each time. The first time he had thoughtfully flooded the levels of his home where they seemed to have access. The second time he had super heated the water by venting ionized plasma from one of his little projects. There would doubtless have been more attempts except for the nasty little nanite colony he had infected the water with for the first attempt. They delivered a tailored virus to the intruders, which would spread rapidly and cause the most excruciating flu-like effects when interacting with MR node tissue. There would be no third attempt, especially in light of the chaos that Utopia found itself mired in at the moment.

The only worrying aspect of the affair to this point was the both Wizard and the pup Jordan surveillance equipment was still down. He had agents already making their way to the pair’s location but since a former and venerable member of Mercer’s original Aeon Society was at the location he had instructed them to be circumspect. Where there was Aeon, there would be Utopia and Proteus Obstacles as well as possibly Triton. Besides, the transmissions had ceased when the pair entered the mansion grounds so it was probably the interaction with a security system he was unaware of. Utopian R&D doubtlessly supplied more than a little ‘black tech’ to their Aeon masters. Still, Jager and Tesseract were making excellent progress and Walt continued to guide them with his masterful control of computers systems.

The sound of clapping drew his attention to two of his displays and as he saw the new comer he was gratified again that he had thought to infect Tesseract and Jager with the nanite surveillance probes in their eufiber clothing. The simple TAC-COM that Jager had wanted wouldn't have been able to broadcast from their current location but the nanite colony... It was it’s own relay system as they individually fell away from the eufiber clothing.

‘Rather like a trail of bread crumbs,’ the genius thought using a simile from the mind of the second grade school teacher that was part of his psyche. Chortling, he eavesdropped on the situation as it unfolded.

“Congratulations are in order I think,” announced Praetorian magnanimously in a booming voice as he descended that shaft under his own power. “You've made it to the heart of our little endeavor. And only tripped two of the security alarms in the process. Neither of which were your fault of course.”

As he touched down on the catwalk twenty feet away from their position the metal under his feet groaned slightly and flexed indicating a much higher than human density. He continued, “The first registers the use of the elevator and always goes off regardless of who uses it. The second is an imaging system that reports the presence of anyone not matching my physical form within the 'nursery.' The other 47 were completely bypassed. It will be interesting to question you in detail about that.”

‘Only his form? Interesting. What does that indicate about Gideon Delphi?’ thought James listening.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Location: Not on our Earth

Jordan sat in a lightless circular tunnel hewn from solid granite; gently cradling Wizard’s still form, as he rocked forward and back slowly. He knew her sightless eyes stared upward into the darkness and the thought that he should try and close them occurred to him but he didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. It was an act of finality that was beyond him to contemplate at the moment. And so he sat rocking her softly and told himself she was sleeping. Knowing all the while that he was lying to himself, but hey, the lady herself had said that belief was important, maybe the most important thing in the world. Thinking of her words now brought silent tears to his eyes and he wanted to laugh as they stained his cheeks. He didn’t for fear it would have the ring of desperation to it. Perhaps even a little madness as well. Both probably.

How long had he sat here? It seemed like hours, days even, but was probably only a few minutes. The combat training the company had given him hadn’t mentioned the tricks violence can play on your sense of perception. Neither had Jager now that he thought about it. They probably didn’t feel he needed that kind of knowledge. More likely they thought he wasn’t prepared for it. They were right. Intellectually he knew this was not his fault. He couldn’t have prevented it. In his heart, deep down, he felt the guilt of the survivor and knew he should have done better.

“Jager is SO going to kill me,” he whispered to himself. The darkness swallowed the sound instantly but the thought looped through his mind over and over as he remembered their last conversation before he and Wizard had departed Prodigy’s lair.

“This isn’t about you, Jordan,” Jager had explained to placate him. “You read the logs on what happened in Oregon. She takes risks, a lot of risks. I won’t have my head where it needs to be if I’m worried about her welfare. I need you to do this for me as a friend. I need to know she’s safe and protected.”

Jager had been so intense! Jordan would have given his soul in that moment just to know that anyone on the planet Earth felt that way about him. And he had failed! Involuntarily a moan of anguish forced its way past his clenched jaws and out his cracked lips, re-opening the wounds Chiraben had lain there in their scuffle. At least that bastard was dead. He hadn’t done the deed himself but he had been there and not tried to help. There was nothing he could have done but in that dark part of the soul he wondered if he didn’t try because the bastard deserved it.

“ I need to know she’s safe and protected.”

The thought reverberated through his mind over and over until he knew his head would burst and spill his node on the rock if he didn’t do something, anything. Then in the echoing distance of the tunnels he heard it again. The sound of it sending shivers up his spine and touching on that part of the brain where evolution put fear coiled like a serpent which tightened its grip on his mind.

”Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li”

Where his body touched the tunnel walls he felt vibration as something the size and mass of a locomotive slid through the tunnels. When last he heard that sound it had been accompanied by four elites screaming like frightened children before their voices had gurgled into silence accompanied by loathsome sucking noise. He had only caught a glimpse of it coming up from behind Chiraben as the assassin tried to throttle the life out of him before it had pulled him off and away into the darkness of the tunnels like a hungry man might pluck at a piece of food. He’d had just barely enough time to snatch Wizard’s body up and sprint before the thing had reached for him. Christ!

Without conscious volition he was on his feet and crouched but paused. There was nothing more he could do for Wizard, her dead weight would only slow him and he knew already that these things were fast. She wasn’t in a position to care anymore!

“ I need to know she’s safe and protected.”

No, he wouldn’t let Jager down again. There was no way in hell he would let that, thing, get her. They were getting out together. Or not. Either way he wasn’t going to face Jager and tell him that Wizard’s body had been left for meat. Moving swiftly and as quietly as possible Jordan made his way down the tunnels moving to place the sounds of pursuit as far behind him as possible. This had seemed so simple only a few hours ago.

They had come to the mansion to meet with someone she called an old friend of the family and mentioned the name Safari Jack. Some old guys that use to be a big-shot in the Aeon Society a long time ago. What the hell sort of name was that, Wiz? Outside the gate they had paused, Wizard with her brow crinkled and examining something he couldn’t see before she finally filled him in.

“There’s some sort of quantum field around this place… It’s twisting the matrix slightly but it doesn’t seem harmful, just very… It’s obscuring…”

She was obviously talking to herself but Jordan was tired from the flight and more than a little put out to be missing out on the action Jager and Tesseract were getting. Either they were going in or they were leaving and couldn’t she get them to Montana quickly?

She just smiled, that enigmatic smile, and then she keyed in the security pass code to the gate. It opened and they were striding up the walk and he was ready for anything, sampling the air and sweeping the area with his eyes just like Jager had taught him. Anything except four novas just appearing out of thin air like the mist. How the hell had they done that? Wizard seemed to know one of them anyway.

“Chiraben,” she said curling her lip slightly.

The guy she addressed had looked carefully at her for a moment before he announced, “We’ve never met.”

“We have a mutual friend that so wants to meet you again. Perhaps you remember her? Jenny.”

The man’s face grew hard in an instant. “Bad news for you. You, I have discretion with.”

Jordan had made his move. As fast as he could he leaped at that green-eyed mite freak. It wasn’t fast enough. He felt the dart in his back from one of the other novas, and felt the familiar sensation of Mox roll through him like a wave while the Chiraben reached up and caught him by the throat. He broke Chiraben’s grip with the block Jager had taught him and skipped backward then dropped into his ready position.

“Not bad little grasshopper,” said the freak smiling. “Too bad you’re wanted intact or we could see just how good you really are.”

“Hey, Chiraben,” said one of the novas. “Toys, remember?”

“Just keep her alive until I’m finished here,” he said and feinted towards Jordan.

Jordan heard the rush of air; a faint gasp from Wizard and then the world fell away in a torrent of sound and colors like nothing he had ever seen before. A gunshot rang out.

Because he and Chiraben had been looking away from Wizard, away from the center of the burst, they recovered first in the dark caverns. Chiraben, that psycho had tried to finish the job and Jordan fought him... Until the thing came from out of the darkness and he escaped with Wizard. It wasn't until later, after the mad rush to escape that thing that he had a chance to look at her closely and realize she wasn't breathing. That blood had flowed from a hole in her chest that he hadn't seen. Bright red blood and even he knew that meant an arterial wound. With the location of the wound it must have passed too close to her heart and that was the end.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

DIRECTIVE FILE
Encryption Code: TwinPeak 1-43-1
Date: July 25, 2013
To: Reinhard Heller
Fm: Jacob Torbuld
Re: ECLIPSIDOL USAGE

To recap, as you know Eclisidol causes affected novas to instantaneously and uncontrollably shunt their entire quantum by any means possible, often to spectacular effect. Novas powers are wildly out of control for up 30 seconds followed by a span of up to 5 minutes during which the nova is unable to manipulate quantum.

Concerns: We are seeing an increase in the quantity as well as quality of quantum control. My primary concern is what happens when something like Eclipsidol is used against an extremely powerful nova? Someone of Pax’s caliber or, god forbid, Divis Mal rather than someone like Sluice?

We’ve observed the affects in the field and seen that more powerful novas generate far more release effect than lesser novas. What happens when it’s used on really powerful novas whose powers affect the world rather than themselves?

We’ve got to come up with a better way soon or we may find out the hard way what happens. See you on Sunday?

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 08-13-2001).]

Somewhere, not on this Earth

For an hour Jordan trudged through the darkness of the strange caverns, uncaring of where he was headed. Subconsciously his auditory senses picked up every sound, every footfall and translated that into an awareness of his surroundings, while he pondered over his current predicament. Finally, tired and cold, Jordan stopped and lowered Jane’s body to the hard floor of the cavern. He sat heavily beside her, resting his hand on her cold and lifeless arm. He looked at her through the gloomy darkness and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry Jason,” He said quietly to himself. “ I let you down, I let Jane down. I let everyone down. Now I’m lost, I don’t know where I am or what do! I’m so sorry!”

Tears rolled down Jordan’s cheeks and his stomach clenched and knotted as all the stress and emotion of the last few days flowed through him. He cried. Slowly at first, tears sliding down his cheeks as small sobs quietly escaped his lips only to become a body wracking, soul-wrenching purge of all the anguish and pain the young nova had kept pent up and hidden within the dark recesses of his heart. He cried for the loss of Wizard and the pain that would cause the people he loved most, he cried for the dead novas carried away by the monster of the cavern. Mostly though, he cried for himself. Jane had come to mean a great deal to him in the short time he’d known her. Part doting aunt, part teasing sister, and most importantly, part protective mother. Jane filled a missing portion in Jordan’s life and now she had been violently taken away from him, just as his own mother had. The pain of loss was too much.

His outburst lasted nearly half an hour, filling the cavern with a wailing that would even give pause to the restless dead. Slowly, Jordan calmed and the crying subsided, he had no more tears. He was exhausted and spent. He laid his head across Jane’s chest and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

An office in Toronto.

Renaud Montpillar sat at the long conference table absentmindedly twirling a pen while watching Jordan’s father pace nervously in front of the door. Enzo turned to the calm Frenchman and asked, “How can you sit there so calmly while my son is missing?”

“Simple Mr. Rossi,” Renaud replied. “I have absolute faith in my investigative team. Do not worry, Bridget will be here momentarily and she will have answers for us.”

The two men locked gazes in silence as Bridget’s 11-foot form slipped through the doorway. “Gentlemen,” She said interrupting their stare-down. “We have good news and bad news I’m afraid.” She walked to the head of the table and put down the papers and laptop she was carrying. “We have Jordan’s last known position, however, he seems to have disappeared again.” Both men gave the woman their full attention and Enzo took a seat.

“Show us what you’ve got Ms. Keir,” Renaud said as he leaned forward, putting the pen on the pad of legal pad of paper before him. She nodded, plugged the laptop into the screen projector on the conference room table, and dimmed the lights before proceeding. The screen lit up with an image of an Opnet forum page.

Bridget took a deep breath before starting. “This, as you may already know is a page of the forum that Jordan has been visiting online for the past few months. And this is the source of the problem.”

“I don’t understand,” Enzo interrupted. “How can a simple chat room cause Jordan to run away?”

Bridget shot the middle-aged lawyer a look of annoyance before continuing. “If I may continue uninterrupted?” Enzo shrugged in acquiescence. “Thank you. Now as I was saying, this Forum is the source of the problem. I was curios about what are newest member was up to, knowing that he was still receiving training and mentorship from someone we could only identify as being highly active in the covert intelligence community. While we could do little to limit his interaction with this “Jager” character as he had your permission to help guide the boy,” She gestured in Enzo’s direction. “We could do an investigation of the man to make sure our own organization was not compromised.”

“Our investigation reveal very little, so on a fluke I decided to lurk around on the forum where your son first met Jager, to see what I could learn.” Bridget paused a moment and took a sip of water from one of the glasses sitting on the table. “The forums were interesting, to say the least. The majority of the posters seem to all come from either the intelligence community or Teregen sympathetic organizations. Despite this anti-establishment, anti-Utopian feel to the board, it remains a rather positive environment. Of course it attracts its share of posers and crackpots, but it seems it has also drawn quite a few “movers and shakers” as well.”

“So what is the point of all this Bridget?” Renaud sat back in his chair, “How does this relate to Jordan’s actions in the past few days?”

“I was just about to get to that. You know the answer to that already Renaud. You know I’d discovered someone claiming to have erupted before the N-day event and you authorized a limited investigation. What I didn’t tell you at the time was that Jager and a nova previously unknown to us called Wizard were already conducting an investigation of their own. Jordan’s primary motivation was to help his mentor.”

A silence fell over the room as the two men absorbed whet they had been told thus far. “So, are you saying it’s our fault that Jordan is missing?” The boy’s father looked at her, visibly shaken.

“No not at all,” she reassured him. “What happened has happened, it no one’s fault. Now here is what we know about Jordan’s current situation. Jordan met up with Wizard, Jager, and another unidentified Nova in Tokyo, Japan. Within 10 hours, we had lost radio contact with him. It appears he entered a building with some highly advanced sensor shielding. The next day, around 10 am, Jordan contacted our 24/7 contact frequency and asked for a complete recording of everything he said and heard. Apparently a rogue Utopia team and several elites decided to take one James Meehan, Nova genius, into custody. Jordan managed to cause enough dissent in the elite ranks to cause the aggressors to retreat.” Bridget pressed a key on the laptop and a recording of the events filled the room.

Both the Frenchman and the Italian looked stunned by what they heard. “That was my son?” Enzo asked.

“Sacra bleu!” was Renaud’s only response.

Bridget smiled at their reaction. “You son is an amazing young man, Mr. Rossi. More than any of us may realize. Anyways, he contacted us again a few hours later requisitioning 2 airline tickets to Addis Ababa. I had Maria Ito follow on the same flight just in case we lost contact yet again. She followed them out of the city. They stopped 30 miles north of the city and 3.5 miles south east of the Abbay River in a small farming community called Malwaka. There they entered the grounds of a large manor and again we lost contact. Anticipating this, I called in a few favors and got some satellite footage of the compound. This is what the satellite recorded.” She pushed another button on the laptop and a series of overhead satellite photographs was projected onto the screen. They showed two individuals coming up to the gateway of a large antebellum mansion. Next was the two entering the open gates. The third showed 5 other people confronting the first two. The fourth showed a physical conflict. The fifth photo showed nothing but a white flash that obscured everything else. The final shot was nothing but a large pile rock where the people had been. The screen went dark and the lights came back up.

“Before you say anything, we have already analyzed the photos. It appears that Jordan and another individual entered this compound, owned by one Jack Talbert officially, and were confronted by some sort of nova strike team. They fought, then something we cannot identify happened. We theorize that Jordan and his companion have been teleported to an unknown location.”

Jordan’s father was definitely worried, his emotion playing all over his face. “W, What are you going to do?”

“We have Maria in the area, investigating. Her efforts are hampered by two factors though. One, she is a baseline and thus has to be careful. Remember that Jager is investigating the rumors of Pre-Galatea novas and this Talbert fellow could be one of them. The other is that T2M is already all over the sight. Don’t worry Mr. Rossi, we’ll find Jordan. I promise you that.”

Enzo looked first to Bridget, then to Renaud. “What can I do? What do we do?”

“We wait,” Renaud said grimly. “That’s all we can do right now.”

Kenya, Africa

“Safari” Jack Tallon scanned the rubble from his front porch. Moments before a battle had erupted between his expected guests and the watchdogs Utopia insisted he continually host. The wake of that conflict had cause everyone involved in the battle to disappear rather spectacularly and leave an enormous mound of rock and rubble in their place. He watched as one of his “protectors” sped her way back to the house. She stopped in a cloud of dust before the porch. “Nothing sir, no bodies from either side unless they’re under all that rock,” she reported.

“Fire and Damnation woman! Why did your people attack my guests?” The aging adventurer growled at the young Nova.

“Guests sir?” Adrianna Mackenzie looked puzzled. “Our intelligence told us that the were a serious threat to your health and safety.”

“Well so much for Utopian Intelligence!” He replied sarcastically. “Now I suppose we’ll have to…” Before Jack could finish his sentence, a sickening roar erupted from the rubble and an enormous tentacled beast rose up from the debris. It reared up over 20 feet high and bellowed its rage at the sunlight. Its body came down with a deafening thud and cracked the earth. With tentacles a blur of motion it burrowed its way into the ground. “Bloody Hell!” Jack exclaimed.

“What, what was that thing?” Adrianna whispered in horror.

“A Shoggoth, girl. It was a Shoggoth.”

Jordan’s Dream
When he was ten, Jordan had read a book. The true story, though he didn’t know it at the time, of a group whose airplane had crashed in the frigid heights of a towering mountain. Initially hopeful, they came to realize that they were trapped by the weather with no rescue coming and began the vigil. Each day after the fourth they watched as their number shrank. The first to die were the wounded. Without shelter or medical attention it was only a surprise to the most innocent when, first one, then another slipped away. Each survivor grieved in his own way for a time knowing in their heart a guilty joy for the fact they still lived. Then the cold touched the least of the strong and stole away with more lives. That was when fear reached from that hidden place where the mind of the reptile slumbered in the strongest of men. One by one, their numbers dwindled until even the most optimistic knew death waited for him. They could not survive without food.

That realization brought to each of them a thought, initially dismissed only to return again, until one of them finally gave voice to it. There was food to be had. In time even those most adamantly opposed listened. Argued. Cajoled. Some refused only to relent later when death’s touch was close. Others were more pragmatic. There was one that refused until his death only two days later. The others ate and gained small nourishment. Of that group would be numbered the survivors. In time they were rescued, and so there was a happy ending of a sort, but Jordan had never really forgotten the story.

For weeks afterwards he had screamed in the night just as he had begun to drift into slumber. That feeling of sleepy warmth that accompanies the descent into sleep was exactly what the book had described as the final stages of hypothermia. In his child’s mind he came to associate that pleasant sensation with death and cried out each time it came. Over the mild objections of his father, his mother had carried him into their room and after much tossing and turning he had slept with his parents. Safe in their room, death had no hold on his thoughts and he could rest peacefully. It’s funny the things you remember when you’re dying.

Alone in the dark, in fitful but dreamless sleep, Jordan wandered the dark corridors of his mind amid half formed thoughts. His senses fueled with quantum power still fed his mind but he had accepted the end was close at hand. The distant rumble of hideous and approaching forms held no terror, only a sense of inevitability. Better that than living with the crushing weight of failure. Jane had told Tess a ‘secret’ only a few days before, and of course being in the same room he couldn’t help but