> Karen in Plureality 2

Steps formed from fractals coming together and disappearing as they climbed, towards what she did not know.

“So what’s the deal here, Max?” she asked

“Ah, you’re going to love this Raven. It’s genius, even for me," he said as more steps appeared and disappeared from the grid, which had rolled and flattened as required. “Just watch out for Mor…”

The words melted into the air, and the floor, and the walls, as Max disappeared and Raven fell… no, slid towards an unknown destination.

Damn! What now? She tried to right herself but things were changing too quickly, pitching and rolling, so she relaxed into it. That’s better. Wonder what Max was trying to warn me about? 

“Good evening, Raven," he said, as he peered through the beaker that held a golden liquid.

She looked out from her cage at the man in the white lab coat. Reaching out, she touched the bars and brought fingers back quickly, as they sparked in response.

“Cute," she said. “So what are you, the evil scientist?”

“No, no. Nothing quite so dramatic. My name is Morganfokker.”

“Well, nice meeting you Fokker but I was in the middle of something.” Raven looked toward the ceiling. So where’s the exit on this contraption? Wish I had my slice. 

As the thought came, so did the slice. She could feel it in her hand and she smiled. Ok then. Thought creates reality. Nice. 

“I require you to tell me what Max has created,” Morganfokker said.

“No can do, Fokker.”

“It’s Morganfokker.” He frowned. Noncompliance was not what he expected and it disturbed him.

“Whatever. So, like I said, nice meeting you.” She sliced the bars and flipped the cage over Morganfokker when he opened his mouth to speak, thinking stairs, then slide, as each thought transformed into reality and she heard his voice fading into the distance.

Nice. I could use a burger, and up ahead a diner appeared and she entered and sat down at the counter, smelling the burgers on the grill and thinking, ”Where the hell was Max?”

Conversational Piece

"What are you saying?" Angst asked Frank. "You are saying that Maggie is not who she says she is?"

Frank was sitting on a chair in the kitchen; he leaned closer to Angst and shook his head. "No. I'm just saying that she is older than she looks."

Angst leaned back in her chair, giving Frank a weird look. "After all the shit I've seen and the places we've been and the stuff that we've been through, it doesn't surprise me one bit."

Frank grabbed a smoke from the table and lit it. He took a long satisfactory puff. Angst wasn't getting at what he was saying. So he might have to illustrate the point.

"Look," he started. "You and I have traveled realities and shifts and even been to the first gates of hell. But we are getting older, aging."

"So?" Angst stated. She was trying to reach the depth that Frank was swimming at.

"So," Frank said. "But Maggie has been something like this for a long, long time."

"Meaning?" Angst asked; she was missing the point.

} Somewhere Between Page 1 and Page 4 - for J.D.

"You okay, Mags?" Aqua asked her, after tapping her on the shoulder.

Maggie snapped out of her daydream and shot Aqua a smile. "Yeah, sorry, was drifting off there for a minute."

"You sure picked a hell of a time to go off on a tangent," Aqua told her.

"Sorry," Mags apologized. 

Both girls were sitting down on the ground, behind a concrete wall. Mags shook the cobwebs from her brain and started to asses the situation at hand. Aqua was flexing her fingers in the gauntlets she was wearing.

"We only got one shot at this," Aqua said. "And I don't want to end it like Butch & Sundance did."

"But didn't they have fun doing that?" Mags said with a sly, wry smile.

Like Butch and Sundance... But With More Irony

The shell ejected from the gun, tumbling into the air for a few seconds, before landing on the marble floor. It joined his brothers on the floor. With both guns blazing Max was making sure that the mooks around him knew who they were dealing with.

"Don't you die on me you bastard," Max told the crumpled figure on the floor.

He was surveying the area and he was vastly outnumbered. No matter how many he took out, it seemed like two would take the place of one fallen comrade. It looked like this time that these mooks would rather face death than report back to their bossman of a failure.

"I ain't going to die just yet," the crumpled figure said. "There's still plenty of things to do."

"Who are these guys?" Max asked.

"Why they belong to your counterpoint..." the figure replied.

"Ain't you my counterpart?" Max questioned the figure on the floor. Max had always figured that Control was behind most of the stuff he had been through; after all he was Control.

"No," Control said. "I'm not your Anti-Max."

Nothing Lasts Forever Including Cyberain

Apple City 2123 AD

The rain fell in the cold predawn morning and she didn't care. She stood on the lip of the doorway looking down the street, remaining partially hidden from the casting of lights. She watched a diner's neon lights begin to flicker and that's when she stepped out into the cold embrace of the rain.

The neon lighting declared the diner to be "Now Open".

She entered the establishment. The doors parting like the red sea for Moses and she stepped inside the comforting embrace of mercury lighting. She slid into a booth and her fingers danced on the table top.

A sound emanating from the back, indicating that her order was received and would be processed.

She moved her hand over and a holographic screen emerged on the table, two news anchors reporting the events of the hour as they happened. She waited for her order and turned as she heard the door open and watched three kids enter the place. They all were dressed in black slickers.

An Asimo 451 waitress appeared with her order. Rolling across the floor with built-in wheels, gliding like a mechanical angel over clouds.

"Here you go, Maggie," the Asimo 451 model said.

"Thanks Jen," Maggie replied; she motioned towards the slicker trio and said, "Prepare for trouble."

Jen's head turned slightly, her sensors picking up on the trio. "How can you tell?"

"When you've been around the block a couple of times you can make an educated guess," Maggie replied with a wink that wasn't lost to Jen.

Like Hoboes in the Night

The train shunted along the tracks. An ambient sound which could be heard from the inside of the car. Here they were like hoboes hitching around, on a car with a side door open enjoying the country view.

"It's times like these that make it all worthwhile," said Frank; his black suit was dirty and he had tried his best to look presentable. He leaned up against the open door, a smoke in his hands and he was watching the starry sky.

Max was sitting on the ledge; he was in that exact frame of mind that Frank was in. Though he was splattered with enough blood to make a CSI happy. He didn't reply at all, content with the knowledge that someone else was feeling what he thought.

The car that they were in was empty, except for Angst sleeping off to one side. She was using Frank's jacket as a pillow.

"Well, I hope Pretty can get that for me," Frank wondered aloud.

"He's good," Max replied still staring up at the night sky, his eyes seemed a million miles away. "He's like Felix The Cat - all he has to do is reach into his bag of tricks."

Frank chuckled.

Message in an Electronic Bottle

Like a vampire with a deep hunger for a taste of blood, so does Max hunger for combat and change. Sitting alone in his apartment, his radio attuned to a station where the music was nothing like the ones he listened to.

Tell me something.

There were three cigarettes butted out in the ashtray beside him. A fourth cigarette smoldered in it, the smoke drifting out like a signal from the past. He was bored, really bored, and he really didn't know what he wanted to do.

A fly had landed on his arm and Max turned to ask it, "What do you think?"

The fly continued to walk along his arm until it finally headed off elsewhere.

"Et tu?" Max muttered and he sighed.

His laptop was open and the screensaver had kicked in hours ago. A swirling mass of lines intermixing with each other in some form of sexual innuendos. He heard the blip of someone messaging him.

He got up from the chair and walked over to the desk. His finger hit the screen and the screensaver disappeared; at the bottom of the screen in the system tray the blue flashing signalling him. He touched it and it called up the messenger.

This Transmission is coming to you.

A LEGACY Break In

She turned when she heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching; she saw a huge, 14 foot tall beast plodding through the walls coming towards her. She ran towards it, her hand on the handle of the katana strapped to her back.

Maggie leapt into the air, and on the ascent she drew the katana, raising it high. She moved as if she was being guided by unseen wires. She brought the sword down upon the skull of the huge beast and split the beast in half.

Landing on her feet, she sheathed the katana and brought up a handgun, firing away at the unnamed mooks who were sent out to die by her hand. Bullets flew and found their mark as she made her way deeper and deeper into the complex.

"This is no picnic," she muttered to herself.

The Decision

INT. GOOD TOMES, GOOD TIMES - EVENING
MAX, FRANK, MAGGIE and ANGST are around a low table; all of them have a mug of something in front of them. Frank has a newspaper folded up and is reading a section. TRUMP is also with them but he is resting on MAGGIE's lap.

Other customers in the shop are scattered about and not paying too much attention to what's transpiring before them.

ANGST
So that's it then?

MAX
Pretty much.

FRANK
When are you thinking of putting it into action?

MAX
Soon. You'll know when.

ANGST
Fuck.

FRANK
Now Angst.

ANGST
This blows Frank. How could you accept that?

FRANK
It's more their war. I'm willing to stand to one side and wait for the call.

ANGST
Goddammit Max, when I was pulled into this group it was all-for-one and one-for-all. Why are you doing this?

MAX
It's final.

ANGST
This fucking sucks.

ANGST gets up and storms off the set.

MAGGIE
She didn't take it too well.

TRUMP
Well, I am not sure if she ever would agree. I don't think I am partial to your decisions.

Before the ReAwakening

Max looked up at the screens and sighed. There had to be more than life then sitting behind a desk and watching empty halls in a building. He looked down upon his name tag and shuddered. 

There was something wrong and he could sense it, but he really couldn't quite put his finger on it. For the past few days he had this nagging feeling of being watched, studied like a rat in a maze and he really couldn't understand why.

"Your turn," Kent told him, snapping Max out of his thought process. It seemed like whenever he got to this thought process something would happen to snap him out of it.

"What are you doing anyways?" Kent asked. "Thinking of some hot chick?"

"No," Max replied; he slipped into his boots. "Just going off on a tangent. I guess."

"Well, you can go back to it once you finish your rounds," Kent stated with a wink.

"Kay," Max said; he got up and took his flashlight. "Be back in 45 minutes."

"Not unless," Kent said and he drew his forefinger across his heck. "You know we are the expendables."

Max chuckled and headed out the door. In every movie security guards were slain in the beginning of a plot, or when the heroes tried to do something in a museum and the bad guys come in, or a monster chews them up good.

He walked down the hallway.

Morganfokker looked up from the stasis tube where a body floated like a specimen in a jar; he tapped the glass and a smile cracked his face. Then he turned and approached the assistant.

"How is he taking to the stimuli?" Morganfokker asked.

The assistant glanced over at the monitor and then down at a flimsy sheet. "Just like predicted. His neural patterns are low. He's actually bored, like projected."

"Good," said Morganfokker. "He's just about prepared for his assignment."

I Would Run Right Into Hell And Back

"I love you," Maggie told him.

"I love me too," Max replied.

The next thing Max saw were stars and then he fell to the floor like a tree struck by lightning.

Signals Sent

Goner entered the room and saw Frank and Max sitting at the kitchen table with a small device; it looked like one of those crystal radio kits you buy at a store. The radio was tuned to a classical station and Mozart was emanating from the speakers, which made Goner cringe. He hated that type of music.

"What you doing?" Goner asked after he opened the fridge and got a cola out.

"Influencing the past," Frank replied; he didn't look up from what he was doing. His left hand was on a keyboard while his right hand held a thin stick and his head was tilted to one side of a makeshift speaker.

Max just gave Goner a wink as he sipped from his coffee mug.

"Really now?" Goner said as he sat down at the table. "And how are we doing that?"

Frank replied with a smile, "Simple if you know what your doing."

Max let a chuckle slip from his lips.

"Well, time is a illusion, like ripples in water and I am just skipping some signals into the mix," Frank replied. "I was just showing Max here how slight signals sent back in time could influence the present. Sending flashes back into time, until the signal is caught and understood."

"Is it working?" Goner asked. "I see that you are listening to music and have a mic up to the speakers?"

Frank reached over and turned the classical station off and hit a top 40 station. A song was playing and then Frank's fingers danced on the contraption, holding the mic close to the speakers. He could hear some tween queen sing lyrics of a song trying to be more sexy than her age, and the beat was funky as well.

"Listen closely," Frank said.

Goner listened to the song as it was being played. Saw Frank's left hand dance across the keyboard, the stick in his hand, hitting a few tiny switches on the board, and that's when Goner heard the slight difference emanating from the radio.

"Whoa!" Goner said.

} Messages in the Black - for T.B.

Max walked across the street. Plopped several bills onto the counter and took 13 random newspapers off the shelf. He walked into a nearby cafe and promptly sat down; he signaled for a coffee and then proceeded with opening up the first paper.

"Now that's strange," said Maude; she had just gotten back from a wedding for which she had taken a week off.

Gladys looked up from the magazine she was reading and spotted Max. "Yeah, he's been coming in ever other morning with a stack of newspapers."

"Any idea why?" Maude asked.

Gladys shrugged and went back to her magazine. "Just bring him an ashtray and keep refilling his cup and he will leave you a nice tip."

"But didn't we go no smokin..." Maude began but promptly shut up and did what she was told.

He opened up the paper to a random page. Looked down at a word and then took a pen and circled it and jotted it down off to one side and then he did the same with the other papers. The waitress gave him a curious glance as he constantly opened up the newspaper at random pages and circled a word.

She glanced over his shoulder as she set the cup down and noticed what he had written: FIND TABLE MARKED WITH SYMBOL GANGLAND... Which she thought was weird but made kind of sense.