Shorelines

The Professor held the pan over the fire, watched the eggs and bacon cooking. Frank stood at the water's edge.

"That smells great," he said. The morning was cool and grey. 

Goner sat on one of the logs by the campfire. He felt happy. The trees around them, the stillness. Their shiny, colourful tents on the small peninsula, like UFOs from a psychedelic future landed in the Garden of Eden. Suki was cleaning her Godhammer. Angst was practicing one of her cheers in slow motion, like yoga with pom poms.

The Professor checked his chronometer. "I always believe in leaving enough time for a good meal before any Event." 

Tatter hugged a wool blanket around her shoulders. "Do you bring them with you everywhere?" she asked Angst, referring to the shaggy bundles of colour shaking in her hands.

Angst smiled, dropping into the splits on the soft earth. "The uzis are my war-talismans, these are my peace-talismans." 

Frank had joined Goner as the Professor began scooping out breakfast onto their plates. "Callan sounds like he'll be a good addition to the team," Frank said.

Goner stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth, talking and chewing. "Max once told me that Callan was a Dragon a long time ago." 

Suki held out her plate. "Just eggs, please. Will Callan be able to help us find Max?"

"I hope so," The Professor said. "It wasn't so long ago," he said to Goner, "but in a very different Version." 

After everyone had eaten, they all gathered down by the water. The canoes had already been loaded with the tech. The Professor opened the silver pouch and emptied the offering into the breeze.

Tatter watched each of them in turn. Frank's precise movements - he would never be entirely free of LEGACY, no matter how many worlds he traveled. Goner's wistful look back at the campsite - nostalgia for his military days perhaps. Angst's permanent half-smile - she never talked about her life before Initiation, except for the cheers. Tiny Suki, who had died and been brought back, according to the logs Tatter had read. There were others she hadn't met yet - or she couldn't remember meeting yet. Darius, Dexter, Wraith, Aqua. The time-displaced Norse samurai, Akimoto. And Maggie - no one talked about Maggie since Max had disappeared. She was like a dream they had woken up from. Tatter had almost asked Angst about it, but chickened out. 

These were them, Tatter thought, as they started climbing into the canoes. "Twelve minutes until Event," The Professor said. These were the people it would happen with. Her new family.

Frank Was Holding the Camera

Dexter, Suki, Wraith, Callan, Akimoto, Darius, Goner, Aqua, Angst

Go Your Own Way

Dexter frowned. "I think it's time that you told us who sent us here." 

The wind from the portals rippled Darius' trenchcoat. "He's right, boss. We should know."

Max nodded. He looked over at Maggie, sent to her I never wanted this to happen. 

She looked back at him with sad, tired eyes. I know, but it did.

The final chamber in the Temple of the Seven-Petaled Lotus looked like a vast hangar bay, all steel and starkness. Except for the seven portals, folding and swirling like rainbow liquid origami. 

"It was Control."

Wraith sneered. "Why should we trust-" 

Callan interjected. "Why should it matter? We're here, and this is the right thing to do."

Aqua, looking so young amongst the other warriors, asked, "But how do we know if it will work?" 

Maggie replied, her voice soft, "We don't, sweetie."

Dex sighed. "Fine. Let's do it." Wraith nodded. 

Max took a final pull from his cigarette. "There's likely to be fighting on the other side."

Wraith slipped her nunchakus from her belt. Dexter hefted his bat. Darius pulled his bible from his coat pocket. Aqua tightened the buckles on her gauntlets. Callan began summoning the Tiger energy within him. Maggie unsheathed her katana. She watched Max step on the butt, turn towards the bending pattern of light behind him. 

? she sent. Joy and Pain were still holstered. 

I'm tired of the guns he sent back, the thought weary. 

And they each stepped into a different portal.

 

Momentually

"No!" Max shouted, jumping over the fence and sprinting over to where Goner had fallen. 

The LEGACY cell team was waiting for someone to do exactly that and took the opportunity to fire.

Slugs nipped away at Max's heels, forcing him to dive for cover. Something that he didn't want to do. He crawled up beside a parked car and did a quick glance to see Goner still lying there in a pool of blood before several rounds of bullets forced him down.

"Bastards!" Max shouted. He stood up, bringing up his guns and ready to rain death on any LEGACY shirts he saw.

Frank broke cover when he saw Max. He came around a corner, barreling towards Max at full speed, hitting him and enveloping him like a football defensive line. Two bullets hit Frank in the chest, but that didn't stop him. 

"Sorry Max," Frank said as he rolled off and fired back several rounds to buy more seconds of distraction. Frank was a member of LEGACY at one time and knew some of the tactics. "He's already dead."

 

The End of the Beginning...

Max lay on a mattress on the floor. Maggie hovered over him with a damp cloth tending to his wounds. He was feverish and delusional at the moment in his world of pain. He didn't know what happening to him but he could feel immense pain. He could feel a warm liquid spreading through his shirt, he knew that it was not water.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"You are here," she answered him as a mother with a child.

"Where's here?" he questioned.

"Here in the now," she answered.

Outside the sound of combat was close. Machine gun fired like a symphony in the night, playing music to which no one really wanted to listen to in the first place. It was hot and Max could see that not only was she covered in sweat, but it looked like she had bathed in blood as well.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing that concerns you at the moment," she told him. 

Max tried to lift his head to see what was going on, but he found that task next to impossible. 

"Am I okay?"

"You are fine, darling," she answered.

Max knew that she was lying.

Wink

Morganfokker slid the open folder towards Adella Cube. Adella looked at it and her eyes widened in mock surprise with a hint of knowledge.

"When Mrs. Henricks asked Max to draw a picture of his home, this is what your son came up with."

She glanced at the picture that Max drew: it depicted a multi-coloured gateway shimmering in the mirror and Max had drawn himself looking in and what looked like to be millions of images of himself looking in other directions.

"Mrs. Cube..." Morganfokker began. 

"That's Ms.," she corrected. She glanced over at Max who was sitting there looking at his sneakers. She could see that he was ashamed, as if he was caught with his hands in the cookie jar. "Max's father disappeared a while back.

"Well, now I am beginning to understand why he is borderline EI," Morganfokker said. "I would like to see your son for more testing. Not that it's mandatory, strictly volunteer. I want to get deeper into his pysche."

Prologue: Hunters Stance

Max, Maggie, Angst and I stood outside the cemetery. I didn't know where it was, some hick town in some backwater county, but to me all cemeteries looked the same. It didn't matter if we arrived in the dawn or the middle of the afternoon, for some reason it always transformed into a dark night.
 
Maggie had said something about the demonic manifestations and the aspect of negative energy which caused the unnatural phenomenon. I had been through this several times before but each time it gave me the creeps.
 
Now here I am staking out another demon. A demon that is terrifying a small town.
 
Max's long coat flutters open with the wind. A cigarette is in his mouth as he glances down at his watch. 1:11 pm.
 
"All set?" he asks.

> Debashis in Plureality 5

bright. sunny day. puffy clouds. warm wispy breeze.
grainy filmy image.


commotion. just over there. pan out. turn to the commotion. focus in, too far in, blurry and focus out. see more clearly. 


he’s being pulled. three others. are pulling him.
words and shouts, nothing really intelligible.
Chaos. Loud. Emergency. Urgent. Disorder. 


imperative to Intervene. but no manuals. no rules. no protocol.
just observe? 


he’s not resisting the others. can’t.


Heart.Beats.Faster. 


he is losing strength. dragged to the street.
they are intervening. violently. they are intervening.
he’s weak. grainy scene. sunny sky in sepia tones? moving toward black and white and grey. 


they’re pounding on him. on his chest. some kind of system re-boot?????? 


getting darker and scene fading. they’re still pounding on him. no energy left. his eyes are trying to stay open and he stares at everything and anything. scene keeps fading. they’re still shouting and yelling. scene fades and pans out. 


no-manuals-no-rules-no-protocol 


can only observe. can’t intervene. 


fade to white. heart beats loud.

Black Magick

It was a little past three in the morning; Max was wide awake. He lay in bed with Mags snuggled against him and stared through the french doors at the silhouetted cityscape, his mind throwing images like a turning slot wheel machine. Max eased out of bed, pulled on his jeans, and quietly stepped outside into the morning air. 

He stood on the balcony overlooking the city below, absently surveying the landscape like a deposed king. The images continued to dance in his mind, and he couldn't make any sense of them. There was no discernible pattern.

"Are you okay?"

"No," he honestly answered. He turned to face Mags, who was leaning up against the door. "I really could use a coffee though."

Mags flowed over and embraced him. She gave him a kiss and then said, "Sounds like a plan to me."

The Thought That Counts

Moving right along at a rapid pace, the group didn't pause for a second. There was no time to lose, as the saying goes. For if they faltered for just a moment, the hordes of flesh-eating alien cyborgnetic-organisms would slightly gain the advantage.

Frank dropped back from his pace with Max and joined in with Angst who was with Tatter, Suki and Aqua. They were keeping each others' pace.

"I don't know if this is the proper time or place for this," Frank said as he reached inside his jacket. "I just wanted to give you something, and I don't know if we are going to get out of this one alive. So I have to do this now."

He handed Angst a small parcel adding, "Merry Christmas."

Starlight Tango

Max sat on the rock watching the horizon as the sun set. Twilight time. He was looking for the first star he could see. He waited with an unlit cigarette between his fingers, it was ready for sentry duty.

He heard faint music coming from Angst's mp3 player, she was listening to some mash-up tune. She was lying on the hood of the car with her eyes closed, listening.

His cellphone chimed and he answered.

"Yo," he said.

"Max," Suki chimed in. "Do you see her yet?"

"Keeping my eye open," he replied.

"Should be any second now."

And as if on cue Max spotted the twinkle in the sky. "There she is," he replied and he tapped Angst on the shoulder. She straightened up.

"Time to tango," Angst said. She looked up to where Max pointed and smiled. She slid off the hood and put the player into the car.

"We only got one shot at this, kiddo," Max said. "Let's not screw this one up."

What Series IS This Anyway?

On the morning train Max blended in with the other commuters who were heading off to work. There were over two dozen commuters in the car and Max didn't mind it at all, since Bishop seemed to have something in the works. It was rare to find this many people in the car. 

Even though his eyes were closed and he looked like he was dozing off, Max's mind was going over a number of future unwritten scenarios that might occur. He was interrupted from his morning process when someone plopped into the chair next to him.

"Is this seat taken?" the fellow asked. 

Max shook his head and straightened himself up; he glanced out the window.

"Do you mind if I asked you something?" the commuter inquired after several moments of silence. 

"Fire away," Max told him.

"I was told that if I needed something done that I was to find a certain person that rides a certain subway car and he might help me with my problem," the commuter said in a low secretive voice.

"Well," Max said as he leaned over to the man. "It all depends on who you where you looking for. But, by the sounds of it you are looking for a fictional character called Hannibal Smith."

+ PLEX TOURS .1 The Lab

• The Bunker
• The Lab Level Two
• The Cast
• The Bookstore
• The Brownstone
• The Subway
• Metafesto
• The Diner
• Chronoplex

Suki lowered her voice as they stepped from the hallway into the room. “This is the Lab.” 

Tatterdemalion shivered; it was cold in the room, or creepy, or both. The banks of machines, tubes arcing and twisting in the corners, the sounds of chemicals and calculations. Sterile smells. Her brow furrowed.

Suki noticed. “It’s familiar to you because this is where your Plex-unit was implanted. The memory won’t be conscious, of course.” 

Tatter suddenly felt ridiculous. Standing in this super-sci-fi hi-tech room in her baggy sweater, listening to a uniformed schoolgirl with a massive handgun perched on her hip tell her about brainwashing and psychological modifications.

Angst put her hand on Tatter’s shoulder. “Breathe. Do your visualizations.” 

Tatter jumped a bit at the touch of the cheerleader, but did as she said, and felt a little calmer.

Angst slipped her arm through Tatter’s, gave a comforting squeeze. “That feeling of absurdity, the doubt about the reality of what’s happening to you… That’s residue from the equipment.” 

Suki was watching some of the screens flash arcane equations. “Morganfokker’s tech emits fields that destabilize the mind’s sense of ontological certainty.” She smirked. “That’s how the Professor describes it anyway.”

Tatter shivered again. “So who’s this Morganfokker?” 

Angst led her over to one of the machines. A steel frame housing hundreds of slender glass vials, threads of light weaving across their surfaces. “We’re not exactly sure. He’s like Max and Maggie.” 

“In what way?” Tatter asked. 

Suki answered. “Well, you know how the Dragons have what the Prof calls 'Continuity'? I’m me, Frank’s Frank, Goner’s-“ 

“-a spaz,” Angst interjected, and the three girls shared a giggle. 

“But Maggie and most of all Max can be, like, all sorts of people? How they change during shifts, not just the place?”

Tatter sighed. “I’m not sure I follow…” She was remembering the day that she was abducted from her homeworld… but staticky flashes of another scene kept interrupting. Her parents dropping her off at University… Meeting her dorm-mate Maggie, talking about role-playing games… 

Angst scanned the vials. Her eyes looked sad. “In one of these I had a baby….”

Suki looked at Tatter with a serious expression. “He can give you things, and he can take them away. He can make you dream, and he can wake you up.” 

Suddenly all the screens in the Lab flickered. Flashed. The machines started to hum and thrum and whine. 

“What’s happening?” Tatter shouted. 

“We shouldn’t have come here,” Angst said, echoes of tears in her eyes.

Suki was staring at the strange, swirling patterns that were storming across the monitors. “I see… It’s Max… He needs our help.”