Another Gateway... Another Time...

The car had rolled to a stop at the base of a hill. The engine was turned off and now there was nothing but the sound of crickets chirping. 

"So what are we doing here?" Goner asked Max. Goner had stepped out of the car and was in the process of relieving himself.

"Don't know," Max replied after he took a puff from his cigarette. His eyes never left the building. "The car brought us here."

Goner looked at the car and shook his head and muttered something under his breath which sounded like "crazy max".

Max leaned on the hood of the car, staring up at the building. The moon was hanging low in the sky and a wind began to pick up.

Max butted out the cigarette and began to walk towards the house. "Well, let's see what adventure waits for us."

Like a Firery Demon...

Mags burst through the door, her katana slashed at the first thing she saw. She didn't care at the moment if it was friendly or not, she was ticked and her eyes were bright as supernovas.

She sliced the beasts in half and moved onto her next target, she was uttering curses in a language not used in over four thousands years.

Over two dozens beasts were between her and her goal. They were being taken down like weeds against a lawnmower.

I Know the Dreams that You Dream in Your Sleep

Jim Hogan awoke in his dream. He knew he must still be dreaming because what he saw before him didn't make much sense at all.

"Excuse me?" Jim asked as he approached the spiky blonde man in the yellow t-shirt. He could see that the fellow was smoking a cigarette and seemed to be waiting.

"Yes?" the fellow answered with a question.

"Ummmm," Jim started and paused. The spiky haired man looked at him and gave him a wink. "Well this is going to sound strange but am I dreaming?"

"That depends on which reality you think you are in at the moment," the spiky haired gentleman said as he flicked his butt onto the tracks and pulled out a cigarette. "One's man dream is another man's reality."

The Lobby Room

Max awoke in a white room. His eyes adjusted to the low fluorescent lighting and he saw that there was a white table and chair in the center of the room. 

He could hear the drone of a lone black fly as it buzzed about his head. As if warning him of the trouble that was about to come. Max sat up and noticed that the clothes he had on were not the clothes that he had put on that morning.

"Are you comfortable?" someone asked through a speaker.

"I don't know yet," Max replied. He got up and straightened up his t-shirt which was also white with a grey logo which looked like a German Shepherd. He couldn't tell. "I will let you know once I have a coffee and a smoke."

"This is a no smoking room," the voice told him.

"Well then," Max said as he stood up. "There's going to be a problem shortly."

After These Messages...

A commercial was on so Max got up and got himself a drink from the fridge. A cold beer; he twisted off the top and flicked the cap across the room and it landed in the garbage. And he took a long pull from it, the beer was cool and it went down good. 

He was about to light a smoke when his phone rang.

"Max," Angst said. "What time is it?"

Max glanced at his watch and said, "10:33. What's going on?"

"Frank said if I didn't hear back from him by 10:30 that I was to give you a call and tell you 'Torches'."

The beer slipped from Max's hand and hit the floor.

Zombie, Ghouls, Undead and Suki

Suki ran through the wall firing the godhammer at anything that wasn't looking alive. She was scared and she had reason to be, since there happened to be tons of zombies about. 

"Eat this!" she screamed at one and his head disappeared. "You want me? You can't have me!" she screamed at another. Her arm moved to the closet target and she pulled the trigger. 

She plowed through another concrete well; she was full of adrenaline and she knew she was pumped full of energy. She didn't want to become a mindless brain eating drone. And there was no way in hell that she was going to end up that way.

"This shift sucks," she muttered under her breath.

"You're telling me," Mags said as she hovered overhead. 

Suki stopped and looked up. "Well, there's a sight for sore eyes!"

Another Legacy...

Max's cellphone vibrated. He walked down the hall and then ducked into a room. He flicked the cellphone up like Captain Kirk on an away mission answering a call. 

"Yo!"

"Do what you are going to do man."

"Why?" Max asked. "Where the hell are you?"

"I boogied," Dan replied. "There's three LEGACY teams here."

Max swore.

"You're on your own on this one," Dan replied. "LEGACY scares the hell out of me."

"I'll meet you at Lucky Wong's later," Max told Dan.
 
Max flipped the phone off and checked his guns. He counted 3 clips. He was going to have to make sure that every bullet counted. He did a quick glance out the window and made a count; there were three sedans and a black van in the lot below. He could see Dan in the building across the street. Dan signaled him and then disappeared.

"Well, let's see what we can do," Dan said to no one in particular.

"Well, I hope you can do a whole lot of shooting," a voice replied from the shadows. Max saw Trump sitting on the ledge.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Dan asked.

"I was about to ask you the same thing." Trump shot back. "Mags will kill me if something drastic happened to you."

A Whiter Shade of Reality

There was a sense of vertigo when he opened his eyes. It was a drastic shift and he tried to locate the Architect of the Flesh team that he was in the middle of a huge battle with.

There was no blood. No wounds. No guns. Nothing. In fact, it was a big blank that he was in.

He sat in a white room at a table; there was a white cup in front of him filled with a black substance. Steaming. It smelled like coffee. He took a sip and was glad to find that it was in fact coffee. 

He saw his reflection in a mirror; he was wearing a white t-shirt with WHAM written in black letters. Great! he thought. I'm a George Michael wannabe. 

There was sound of a ding and a door opened up. Three men walked in all dressed in white, each carrying a clipboard. All looking like carbon copies of him.

Max scratched at his chin and discovered he had some stubble. He took another sip of the coffee, and immediately the three clones went to their clipboards and started scribbling.

"Max." A voice came over an intercom.

"Not I," Max replied. "You've got the wrong person."

Remix: The Hellcat

Archived Event: The Hellcat 

 

There was a rap at the door. 

The doorman turned towards the door and was about to slide the peep-hole open to see who it was, his gun drawn in case it was danger. He didn't realize what hit him and sent him down on the floor.

Maggie kicked the door open and charged in, her katana swung and she caught the other doorman off guard. Sending his head one way while his body fell another. 

She was a hellcat unleashed and she was showing no mercy. Her hair alive and looked as if it was on fire, her eyes seemed radiant with the intensity of hate.

"You wanted me," she shouted. "You got me!"

Everything suddenly froze around her. Blood splatters hanging in mid-air like a 3D Jackson Pollack painting. The decapitated head suspended over the floor like a macabre moon. The first doorman cowering in fear at Maggie's feet, still like a statue.

Maggie growled. "What the f-" And then a needle of pain lanced her frontal cortex, right down into her temporal lobe.

The scene around her started to strobe. Horror-movie-meets-rave lighting effects. She winced with pain, had a strange memory of Max telling her once that the secret to a good party was the lighting. The blood in the air casting strange shadows on her body.

And she saw Max's body. On the floor of the room. Still like a statue. Her katana was sticking out of it. But it was also still in her hand. But it was hers in his body too, she could feel it.

"This is how it has to end," the man said. The man had stepped into the stillness from outside it all. Shadow-man, angles like razors. "Surely you know that by now."

Maggie sheathed her katana, the one still in her hands. The other was in Max's body. She felt nauseous.

The man said, "The Professor is trying to use a Plexotron Device to mix Max into this event. I've hacked the signal so I can show you this. Show you the future."

"I know who you are," Maggie said.

"But do you know that the war you fight, the demons you battle, are because of him?" The man pointed at Max's body. 

"That's a lie."

"He didn't start it. But the way he Shifts, the way he is always coming and going, it makes it worse. It summons the demons, it weakens the borders."

"Max helps me fight the demons." The pain was getting worse.

"And every time he follows you into battle, there is mission left unfinished, a world somewhere left unsaved. It won't end until..."

Morganfokker pointed at Max's corpse.

"Welcome to your Remix."

*The Lonely Hunter*

Time: 10:10pm

Date: October 13th 1977

Place: The Professor's Lab (NYC)

Max made his way through the streets; he was sharply dressed and looked like he was heading out for a good night on the town. He glanced at his watch and noticed the time; he stopped at a convenience store and pointed to a brand of smokes he wanted. The clerk reached back and nabbed a pack and brought it to the counter. Max paid with a crisp $20 bill and didn't wait for the change.

The clerk thought it might be fishy so he held it up to the light to give it a closer inspection.

The Professor's Lab neon sign flickered on and off like a bug zapper. There was a line up at the door, about thirty lost souls waiting to get into the hottest club in the Big Apple. Max strolled past them and up to the bouncer at the door.

"Yo, Mangy," Max said to the bouncer.

"Mr. Koob, it's good to see you again," the bouncer said as he unhinged the velvet rope and let Max in. "Didn't think you'd be making it this evening, considering what went down last night."

"Oh that?" Max chuckled. "Things like that happen ever single day, Mangy. Like someone once told me 'Never sweat the small stuff'."

Max stopped at the door and glanced in the mirror, his shoulder length hair feathered back, his beard trimmed and looking sharp. He was ready to rock the night away.

Remix: Waking with the Marmalade

Archived Event: Waking with the Marmalade

Max awoke. He was lying on a bed in a small room, and no one was saying "Poke him again," which was a good sign.

He glanced around his room; the window was open and he could hear the sound of the city beyond it.

His first thought that he was somewhere European, maybe a bed & breakfast kind of establishment. 

He swung his legs from the bed and touched the wooden floor, and as his feet moved he could feel a tingling sensation shoot up them.

Outside his window he heard Frank arguing with a man, though it sounded French.  

I don't know French. 

And yet he could make out the gist of the conversation. Frank was asking the man about a tall slender fellow that was rumored to appear in a blinding flash of light, naked as a jaybird.

Max leaned out the window and saw Frank standing below, and off to one side he could see Angst leaning up against a car painting her nails. He was going to say something but the door to his room opened.

Max turned to see who entered. He instinctively reached for his guns but they weren't there. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Are you Max?" she asked back. "Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Karen."

Max could still hear Frank outside. He was feeling pretty confused and vulnerable, and he thought about calling out to Frank and Angst.

"Wait," Karen said. "This is probably going to sound strange..."

Max smirked. "I'm okay with strange..." 

Karen continued. "Have you ever heard of keeping a dream journal? I keep one, but every night I've been on this vacation I haven't been able to remember my dreams..."

Max was very aware that Karen was blocking the only exit to the room, except the window. He couldn't hear Frank anymore; it made him nervous. He slowly edged his way towards the windowsill, glanced outside. Frank still down there, talking to Angst.

"Until last night," she said. "Last night I had a very specific dream, very vivid. A young girl, I think she was Japanese, told me an address - this address - and said... Well, I wrote it down..." 

She reached into the pocket of her coat. Max tensed. Frank and Angst looked up to the window and saw him. Karen pulled out a piece of paper and read from it:

"She said, 'Max, that's not Frank and Angst. They are LEGACY shape-changers.'"

Max saw Frank and Angst start towards the front door of the building.

"What does it mean? What does all of this mean?" the woman asked.

Max held out his hand. "It means, Karen, that we have to get out of here."

Remix: Cube

Archived Event: Cube

Max sipped from a water bottle while waiting in a lounge room. He wiped sweat off his brow with the towel draped over his shoulder. He was tired and very sore and he didn't think he could press on. 

So this what it feels like to be past your prime. 

"Man, that was intense," Goner said as he strolled over. His t-shirt was soaked through and he was starting to reek from sweat. "Best yet, I'd say."

Suki smiled from the corner where she sat tuning her guitar.

"Well, like wine one improves with age," Maggie said. She was sitting on the edge of a sofa teasing her hair. 

"Or turns into vinegar," Frank added after taking a long pull from a beer.

"You always have to see the negative in everything, don't you Frank," Goner said to him, shaking his head. "That's one thing that I didn't miss."  

Suki said, "Frank's just a realist." Then she started humming a melody.

"You know, I never thought I'd be back here today with you guys," Frank said. He was sitting on a director's chair, with a bucket of beer on ice beside him. "I think I'm getting too old for this kind of shit. But when an opportunity like this comes up, nostalgia kicks in."

"You'll never get old in my books," Angst said as she emerged from the bathroom. She was having trouble doing up the zipper on the back of her mini-dress. She turned her back to Max, who reached over and zipped her up. Angst noticed the tune that Suki was singing, saw her begin to pick out some notes on the guitar.

"Didn't you wear that in Vegas?" Aqua chided Angst. "Looks like the same one."

Aqua received only the finger from Angst.

"Getting bitchy in our old age, eh?" Aqua shot back at her with a smile. She dropped down into the corner beside Suki, listening to the quiet music coming from the instrument.

The door to the room opened up and Morganfokker strolled in. "I think you guys better get back out there. It's going to get wild if you don't."

Max nodded and he turned to the rest and said, "Let's rock." 

Goner ripped off his t-shirt and grabbed his drumsticks off the stand. "What's the encore going to be?"

Max noticed the song that Suki was playing. Everyone paused for a moment, all together again after so long, the faint roar of the crowd like a storm in the distance. They all listened to her play and looked at each other and nodded.

"Let's do something new," Max said. "Anyone got any new material?"

And Suki looked up with a huge smile on her face.

Remix: Into the Well of Darkness...

Archived Event: Into the Well of Darkness 

 
"You sure about this?" Goner inquired. He stood at the edge of the well and looked down; he was shaking off the unsure feeling. Of all the weirdness he had been through in the past few days, this was certainly unnerving. 

Joy scanned the treeline, shadows and branches and fog woven together. Menacing and spooky. She could tell that Goner was getting creeped out, so she put on a brave face and joined him at the well's edge. Gave him a playful tap with the barrel of her shotgun.

Max walked up beside them and glanced down. "The old lady said this was the way." Joy was pretty sure that Max sounded less-than-certain, and she hoped that Goner wasn't picking up on it.

Goner picked up a brick that was off to one side and dropped it over the edge; they watched the brick disappear into the darkness without a sound. Joy saw Goner shiver.

"I hope the hell you are correct with that old lady," Goner said. "I hope she didn't lead us into a trap. You know there could be that demon girl from that horror movie I watched waiting to feed on our souls." Joy could tell he was trying to make a joke, except given how the last few days had gone, it wasn't all that funny.

Max took a long puff from the cigarette; he exhaled the smoke into the air and then he flicked the cigarette off to one side. He was stalling. Joy had been through enough shifts with him to know that was a bad sign.

She holstered her shotgun over her shoulder and pulled out her phone. Tapped the screen. "There's this new app..." she said. "Measures the ectoplasmic vibrations of nearby spatial nodes that could indicate the presence of paranormal entities..."

Goner looked at Max. "Is she joking? Paranormal entities?"

Max said, "AKA Ghosts." He smiled and winked at Joy.

Goner looked at Joy. "You're joking, right?"

Joy looked up from her phone. "We're clear," she said. And shoved Goner into the well. Max nodded a thank-you and jumped in next. Joy unholstered the shotgun and jumped in after them.