Nexus Force

"Yo Max, pass me another beer," Dexter said; he was leaning against the meat counter, picking at an open container of luncheon meat. 

Max reached behind him and pulled out a can of Coors and handed it Dexter. He didn't think that the shop owner would mind, since there was no sign of anyone at all.

"Listen...," Aqua said as she rain down the aisle; she was carrying a boombox. She placed the stereo down on a shelf, there was nothing but static. "It was there a moment ago." 

"Who hasn't heard that before?" Goner questioned. "We've been hearing nothing but white noise ever since we arrived in this godforsaken wasteland."

Max cocked his head to one side and he could here a faint voice amongst the static. He smiled. "This means we are not alone in this shifted version," he said. "We got work to do!"

"It's about freakin' time," Dexter said as he downed the warm beer and tossed the can over his shoulder.

Mistaken Moments

Maggie took a deep breath. She had reached her limit, she had been on the run for hours and they still seemed to be one step ahead each time. It was time to face the music once and for all.

"It's do or die," she said aloud, as she wrapped a fresh bandage on her arm. Making sure it was secure enough to staunch the flow of blood.

At the far end of the street she saw four figures emerge from the shadows. One of the cell team held a "godhammer". The others carried various other weapons.

As they came closer Maggie let out an astonished gasp at what she saw; a woman warrior, hardened by time, leading the cell forward. There was no mistaking it, she saw her herself.

Her double self, eyes widening as she caught site of Maggie.

"What the hell is this?" her double asked.

Chance Encounter in a Coffee House

Max Cube blew wispy smoke across the table at the man in the blue suit, wondering why he hadn't gone to Peru. Now he found himself sitting in a coffee house across from someone he had killed several times over in various universes.

"You know she is the key to this," the blue-suited man said to him.

"I wouldn't exactly say a key," Max replied after he butted out the cigarette. "She's more of a legend."

If I Die Before I Wake

"Interesting," the man said as he stood back and looked at the limp body of Maggie. "She never screamed out."

He placed a couple of bloody tools on a palette and stood back to admire the corpse he had just made. He reached for a camera and snapped off a photo and smiled.

"What a subject," he said with such sadness. "Such a pity."

He touched his hand to her chin and lifted up her head and stared at it for a brief second before letting it fall limp. He thought about kissing her lips but never acted on impulse.

He turned to his next victim and with a hand to his lackeys he said, "Dispose of her."

The man approached Max, who was strapped down on a steel slab. Metal bands strapped across his body to hold him from escaping.

"Your friend was an interesting subject," he said to Max. "I hope you fare as good as she did."

Max started to chuckle.

"What is funny?"

"Nothing much," Max said in a raspy voice. "Just that you have made a big mistake."

"What do you mean?" the man said as he turned to see the latch come from from Mags' limbs. And the lackeys began to remove her form. The man snapped to attention as he saw Mags open up an eye.

"You don't know the level of pain that you have brought upon yourself," Max said.

On the Run, Forced to Flee...

The rain continued to fall and showed no sign of letting up soon. Max could tell that morning was coming since the sky seemed to lighten up a bit. There was a hint of a smile on his lips, another night gone by.

Max raced through the bushes since time was of the essence now. Suki kept up pace with him, constantly looking over her shoulder. She stumbled a little and was about to fall but Max caught her arm and kept her steady.

"I don't think I can run anymore," Suki said with so much exhaustion.

"Daylight is just moments away," Max told her. "Just for a few more minutes, kay."

Suki forced a smile and continued to run on numb legs. 

"I hate this world," she muttered.

"Because of the vampires?" Max questioned.

"No," Suki replied. "It doesn't have a Timmy's."

Games Without Frontiers

Max's eyes flickered at the crisp blue sky overhead, where clouds blocked and puffy floated overhead much akin to an old NES video game.

His head pounded as if a small insect had crawled inside and now was munching on his grey matter. His eyes hurt as if thousands of small needles where being jammed into them.

"Where in the hell are we?" Angst asked. She sat up and glanced around. "Sure is pretty though."

"I rightly don't know," Max answered truthfully. He was suffering from what appeared to be jet lag and couldn't get his bearings.

"You okay Max?" Frank asked.

"Yeah," Max replied.

"You ever see that Disney flick Tron? I think this is something like that?" Frank stated.

"Tron?" Angst repeated. "What is that?"

"It's about a world of programs playing games to survive," Frank gave her the reader's digest version.

"You mean Reboot?" Angst asked. "I like that show with Bob, Dot and Mike the TV. Really hated that Enzo though."

MAXical Mystery Tour

Like Twilight for Chocolate

Suki slid across the floor, her arm outreached grabbing for the Godhammer. Around her bullets ate up the concrete, showering dust around her. It was a hailstorm.

She reached the gun and continued to slide behind some cover, and that began to disintegrate as well. She went fetal as she felt the gun in her hand and she pressed the trigger for it to charge up. Dust specks rained around her, turning her black hair into silver.

She could hear the faint hum and the gun began to give a faint glow like a distant star in the twilight sky. Another few seconds and those bastards wouldn't know what hit them.

Cube Hype

Madison Hall walked swiftly next to the orderly down the stone stairs. She didn't know what to expect when she had received her new case. Madison was glad to be given such a subject to study, it would be a definite book or two, and she would probably do the talk-shows.

"He's down here," the orderly said. "This is where we keep our special cases."

"I know," Madison said matter-of-factly. "I've read his dossier."

"Let me tell you sister," the orderly said with a hint of a wry smile. "Reading and seeing are two different things."

Madison thought the orderly was shining her on. With her being new to this ward, they probably wanted to scare her with hidden bogeymen ready to spring out and get you.

The orderly reached up and punched a set of keys and a buzzer sounded and the door unlocked.

"Is he kept alone?" she inquired.

"It's hard to say," the orderly replied. He made sure that the door was shut behind them and he hit the locking mechanism. "He might not even be there."

"What do you mean?" Madison inquired. "Does he escape?"

"It's hard for me to say," the orderly said. "Some times he goes for a few days, but he always reappears here. Haven't you read his file?"

Madison stopped in her tracks. "You mean to say that he is gone physically? Not mentally?"

The orderly kept walking down the white corridor.

Madison proceeded to walk in, analyzing the new data which the orderly was telling her. She felt the orderly was pulling her leg, trying to get a shine on the new face in the crowd.

The orderly approached the door at the end of the hall which was labelled: Project Cube.

The Delicate Perceptions of Cubes

Max looked up and smiled at the waitress as she walked away from the table. She gave him a wink and he nodded his appreciation of not having to call her for a cup of coffee.

"Still got the charm," Pretty said as he slid into the seat. He was dripping in sweat and his long coat seemed to be bulging with items. Though Max could see that Pretty was pretty comfortable.

"Yep," Max replied, then he took a sip of coffee. "What have you got for me?"

"Something new and exciting," Pretty said as he put a cloth bag on the table. He pushed it towards Max. "Got it from a fallen LEGACY cell team. Got there before the blue boys could make the scene."

Max didn't bother on opening the bag just yet. He had good judgement in Pretty's observational technique. 

"You let me know how it works," George said as he slid out of the seat. "Sorry to make this quick but I got a deal going on the other side of the river."

"Thanks, Pretty," Max said.

The Mission is the Key...

Twip.

The sentry didn't know what hit him as the bullet entered his skull and mushroomed out the side of his head. 

He fell over faster than the cigarette that tumbled from his mouth. 

"One down and about a million more to go," Mags announced over the headset. She changed targets to the next sentry. 

"Stick to the game plan." The Professor's voice was crisp and clear. "No deviations at this point. Stay focused."

"Don't you ever sleep?" Mags asked the Professor.

"I don't think he ever does," Angst said. She was dressed in black like Mags, in a skin-tight spandex suit, which made her look more like an X-man than a cheerleader. "I think he should switch to decaf."

Mags chuckled a little.

"Quit the static." The Professor's voice had an severe edge to it. "You know what this mission means."

"Must be that time of month for him," Angst replied to Mags.

Let Sleeping Max Sleep

"Rise and shine Max," Frank's voice seemed to echo from a distant tunnel, rousing Max from his sleep. Fleeting memories of what was happening disappeared like ripples in a water.

Max opened his eyes and looked around the subway car. He checked his watch and to his amazement he had slept six hours.

"You've been sawing logs for a while," Frank said.

"What's going on?" Max asked.

"Not too sure at the moment, the others are gone out to scout things around," Frank replied. "Tried to get you up earlier but you were in a deep sleep."

> Debashis in Plureality 4

Suki was what they called “wisely innocent”, a soul who presented as rather young but in reality, was ages beyond others. It’s just that she would come across as naïve. 

Max never felt sorry for her, but wanted to protect her. That was hard because she had her own little chaos and Max was chaos personified. Some days. Most nights. 

Suki and Max, at some star-crossed time, had this mutual-protection-unspoken-pact between them that led them both to the brink of destruction – well, while Suki tended to come to the edge because of Max, Max led himself there rather often. They’d get to the edge, get nearly destroyed, and then walk away, with some bruises and cuts and scrapes, and maybe missing a limb. 

Max would recover and get into some adventure again (more likely a ‘situation’) and Suki would rise to some other level of maturity or development or awareness or consciousness or some something self-aggrandizing like that. Except she would not really see herself that way. But deep down in her versions, her selves, her plurealities, she grew deeper and deeper, older and older, wiser and wiser. 

To you and me, she was just Suki, someone to watch as she negotiated her way through the stars, someone who was cute, but in that ‘little kid’ kind of way – maybe like a little sister – a little sister who could just as easily pull an Uzi or furnish a switchblade to slit your jugular. 

How can you want to be near someone to protect them and yet at the same time, be a little scared of them? That’s Suki. Cute and Cutting.