DAY TWENTYSEVEN 23:43PM

Homesick 

Max watched the highway scroll through the headlights of the car. He tapped the tip of his cigarette out the window, embers falling away into the night like shooting stars. The owner had a few CDs in the glovebox - Springsteen, the Pixies, REM. Max had played through them all during his long drive and was on the last, Radiohead, with miles and miles more to go. 

That there... That's not me... I go... Where I please... 

Yesterday had been the day that Max was going to make proper contact with the Agent that LEGACY had enlisted to hunt him. To try and turn him. To transform the weapon of the enemy into the shield of the innocent. It was Max's preferred tactic; it had worked for Frank and Goner and others too, who he could only remember like shadows from dreams. Of course it had failed for as many, if not more. 

Max sighed. He had lived too many lives. 

I walk through walls...  I float down the Liffey... 

This Agent Light would have the contacts and resources to ensure the safety of Alice's tribe. If Max couldn't reunite with them, then he'd send them a guardian in his place. Or that had been the plan. Until Max's mole had informed him that Agent Light was leaving on a major field assignment, to a remote lakeside cottage. Max had figured it had to be where the church had taken sanctuary. 

I'm not here... This isn't happening... I'm not here... 

He was sorry that Stone had cracked and hoped his end had been a quick one, but the exigencies of the battlefield forced him to be glad that the detective had tipped his partner to the laptop before he tried to storm the downtown offices of LEGACY. And that Riveta had come onboard.

Another player invited to the game. Until her time came. Max took a long drag off the smoke. He had lost too many lives. 

In a little while... I'll be gone... 

So now Max had to somehow stop Simon Light. And to rescue Alice's people, without coming into contact with her. He had already called in too many favours from the Otherworld and the Spirit Realm - he would be paying for years to come. Once upon a time, Pretty George might have had something up his sleeve, but things had ended badly between them... Or the Professor would have had some wild sci-fi metamathematical solution... But that was another wound that had long since scarred over. 

The moment's already passed... Yeah, it's gone... 

And something else had happened. Earlier today, before he got the call from Riveta. That charge that ran through him, that burst of static that almost swallowed him whole... Something had changed, but he hadn't had the time to meditate on it. Some part of him felt like it was gone, or had been replaced with something new. It was almost like the transmissions he used to receive, before he had gone into hiding. 

Strobe lights and blown speakers... Fireworks and hurricanes... 

In the end, Alice had to live. That was clear from the evidence at the Facility. And LEGACY couldn't bring the rest of them to harvest. Max would do whatever it took to prevent that from happening. 

I'm not here... This isn't happening...

DAY TWENTYSEVEN 23:42PM

Warpath 

Agent Light watched the darkened landscape scroll beneath the copter. The pilot, Agent Sedara, had patched in a Radiohead album on their helmets' internal speakers for the flight. 

Everything... Everything...In its right place... 

It was a long trip, technically outside his division's jurisdiction, but the commanders had cleared him to lead the op. The LEGACY Corporation had apparently requested it when they had called in the latest lead on the open investigation. They claimed they had intelligence that placed a number of Max Cube's collaborators at a remote lakeside chalet. Simon was getting a sense of just how quickly his organization jumped when the suits rang the bell. 

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon... 

Right after the briefing, when the Tac-team was gearing up, Simon had put in a call to Detectives Stone and Riveta. He had no professional responsibility to update them; it was more of a courtesy. He had learned from Riveta that Stone had been declared missing. Simon's original hope that this assignment might be the one that finally answered the ache inside him was turning into something else. It was mutating into a dread, a slow-burning, smoky feeling of something being wrong. 

... In its right place... Right place... 

He hadn't told anyone about the intruder in his apartment 3 nights ago. He was sure it had been Cube. And he had been sure that it was a warning. Max letting him know he could get to him if he wanted. So Simon had moved to a hotel. But for some reason he couldn't bring himself to report the incident. 

Thinking about it, analyzing it, working off the spotty profile that LEGACY had provided, Simon had started to wonder if Max had been sending another kind of message to him... According to the Corporation's security records, Cube was responsible for numerous attacks against their property and personnel over the years. If he knew Simon was after him, why not take him out? 

There are two colours in my head... There are two colours in my head... 

If it had been Cube, and if they really were only hours away from apprehending some of his collaborators, then the mysterious man would likely make an appearance. 

What, what is that you tried to say?
What, what was that you tried to say?
Tried to say...

DAY TWENTYSEVEN 12:07PM

Interference

Max was putting on a black t-shirt with a picture of the Milky Way on it with an arrow pointing off to one side which said 'U R Here'. 

For a fraction of a second his whole body seemed to glitch, like a satellite TV signal during a thunderstorm.

He looked at his arms and he said, "Well, that was new!"

DAY TWENTYSEVEN 12:00PM

You're A Long Ways From Home...

Suki's chronometer was chiming. She didn't need to glance at it to know. She tapped Donnelly on the shoulder. He had been sleeping on the edge of a table, covered up in a blanket. 

"Father, it's time," she said.

"Are you sure this is the only way?" he asked as he sat up. "My child, do we know what we are about to do?" 

"Yes," she said soberly. "It's the only course of action to their counter-actions."

Scorpio began to gather up the weapons he was working on; there was a pile of them spread out on a green blanket. He had field-stripped and cleaned every one, making sure that they were prepared for battle. 

"You're sure this is the right course of action," Donnelly insisted again. From what Suki had told him of the device he really wanted to make sure that every action was held accountable.

"You contacted the chalet, you heard from them yourself." 

He had called the number and when Susanna had answered he had wanted to know how the kids were, and how everyone was holding up. And she had told him how Hank had tore out of there like a bat out of hell. He had never inquired about the health of Mother, since he didn't know her.

"I'm telling you, Father. This is the only way to make everything right," Suki said. Donnelly trusted her; after all she had that angelic quality about her. 

"But what about finding Max?" he asked.

"We are past that point," she told him. They walked over to the device and Suki punched in MAGENTA OPUS into the keypad. The device clicked and hummed and then disappeared. 

"Let's roll," Scorpio said.

DAY TWENTYSEVEN 4:55AM

The Laughing Track

Two men pushed a cart through the hall, both dressed in white, wearing medical masks underneath plastic visors. 

"You think he ever knew?" the thin man asked the elderly man.

"The question is: do you want to know?" the elder asked. 

The thin man stayed silent for a few moments, pondering that question. They continued to roll the cart through a long cold hallway.

Once they reached the elevator, the elderly man waved the back of his palm toward a green light and the doors hissed open. 

"No," the thin man finally said as they entered the elevator. "I think I would probably remain a fish."

Both men chuckled as they turned the cart around, and Hank's bloody hand slipped from underneath the sheet.

DAY TWENTYSEVEN 3:22AM

The Economy of Tragedy

"We're sorry to keep you up so late, Mr. Sanderson. We're almost done." 

Hank nodded at the man in the suit. The woman sitting beside him continued to type things into the laptop. "It's ok, I don't mind. It will all be worth it."

The woman paused in her typing to look at him. "It will be, we assure you." 

"You can make it go back to the way it was... Before he showed up," Hank said.

The man answered. "We most certainly can. In fact, if things go according to our projected design, we will be able to make some adjustments that you might find... to your liking." 

Hank was tired, and his head was swimming. A lot of the meetings he had been to these last few days were blurry, dreamy. He had answered every question they had asked. Had he told them about his feelings for Alice too?

"And you can make sure he won't show up again?" Hank asked. 

"We have someone working on that right now," Greg Logollos said.

DAY TWENTYSIX 19:47PM

The Pwned

Max awoke from his nap. His eyes flickered open when he heard the buzz of a housefly zipping past his ear. It was an alarm that triggered him. 

It was still too cold for houseflies to be around, and it wasn't hot enough out for it to be here.

"Thanks my friend," Max said. He got up and stretched. 

He looked around the motel room. The evening sky was dull and dark. He caught a reflection of himself in a mirror and he had to chuckle; for some reason he was thinking of Martin Sheen in a movie directed by Coppola. Max did a pseudo character pose, and chuckled.

He strolled into the bathroom and showered. He could feel the energies around him, things were falling into place, like a domino game on a schoolyard. Still there were three things left he had to do before the big show.

DAY TWENTYSIX 14:05PM

Ticking The Seconds

Suki pulled the car into the campground; it was closed for the season but it didn't matter since Scorpio had taken the bolt-cutters to the main gate. 

Donnelly got out of the passenger side of the car and went around back to the trunk as Suki popped it open. He reached in and took out a big black bag.

Suki stepped out of the car and stood up and took a deep breath and then let it out. 

"Where are we going to set this up?" Donnelly asked.

Suki glanced around and pointed to where the picnic tables were piled up like dominoes. "There." 

"It's all clear," Scorpio said as he approached Suki. He had done a survey of the campground. "You sure this is the place?"

Suki turned and smiled at him, a pleasant warm smile. A smile that told him all he needed to know.

OMEGA STATION TWELVE

55-B-2457
ee.dh.99

"Sir, I think you should come see this," an aide said with a hint of urgency. 

Morganfokker looked up from his desk; he was in the final stages of preparing his report. "Yes?"

"You're not going to like what's going on, sir," the aide nervously said. 

Morganfokker stood up, his hand swinging and knocking a snowglobe off the edge of his desk.

Before he could react, the globe hit the floor and shattered into several pieces, water spilling about the floor as well as thousands of tiny specks.

DAY TWENTYFIVE 10:14AM

Miles To Go

Johannesberg stood on the dock, overlooking the lake. Watching the water. He knew there was something he should be doing but for some reason it eluded him. 

Susanna came down from the cottage with two cups of coffee in her hands. "I thought you could use a cup."

"How are the kids?" Jo asked, accepting the offered cup. "Hope they are not bored." 

"Playing dodgeball with Milligan," she replied. She stood beside Jo and overlooked the lake.

"Beautiful, isn't it," Jo stated. He secretly wished he could stay here forever. "I'm glad the warm weather is finally upon us, should make the nights better." 

"You know, I wonder why we are out here so early?" Susanna asked. "Are we on a field trip?"

Jo was about to reply, but was lost in thought. There was something happening and going on and Father Donnelly had left to meet up with someone, and soon after that Hank tore out of here like a bat out of hell. 

"It's all like a dream, isn't it," Susanna said to break the silence. "It will be sad once we leave this place."

Thunder rumbled upon the horizon. 

"We better bring the kids in," Jo said. "There's a storm coming."

DAY TWENTYFOUR 21:00PM

To Everything There Is A Time

Stone turned off the ignition. Three blocks ahead of him, the skyscraper rose up into the night. The low clouds were glowing with the dull-orange of reflected light from the city. It looked the sky was about to combust. 

He could feel the fire inside him. Looking at the tower. The smooth black glass. The logo of the LEGACY Corporation. He was burning inside.

What terrible things were happening inside right now? The terrible things he had read about on the laptop. And then things Max had shown him yesterday. 

He didn’t regret contacting him.  He already knew the world was a bad place – the job had taught him that – but Max had shown him just how bad. Stone wanted to know, though: it’s why he had become a detective. So he could learn the true ways of the world.

They were so much stranger and so much darker than he ever imagined. 

Maybe that’s what started the fire inside him. Or maybe it had been smoldering for years. Too many years of crime scenes, of blood and ashes, of the powerful abusing the weak, of the system brutalizing the wounded.

So it had all come down to an open investigation and a laptop, a mind-bending conspiracy and a man named Max. 

He knew how things really worked now, what sorts of crimes were really being committed. Entire lives and worlds used in nameless agendas. Experiments, violations, nightmares. Secrets that could save the world and make fairy tales come true hoarded and corrupted for greed and terror.

So now he had to do something about it. 

He turned the key. The car started. The flames in him flickered.

The car moved down the street towards the skyscraper. 

Stone glanced at the cell phone in the passenger seat. Riveta’s number was cued up.

His sidearm was beside it. The fire surged. 

He approached the tower.

DAY TWENTYFOUR 17:51PM

Ashes Of Immortality

It had been a long day of tracking and hunting, thousands of leads and yet nothing. Simon was exhausted. He opened up the door to his apartment and the first thing he could smell was cigarette smoke. 

He quickly slipped into the room and closed the door behind him, and took out his revolver.

Silently, like a panther, he walked along the edge of the wall toward the kitchen. His nostrils could pick up the scent of coffee as well. 

He did a quick glance into the kitchen and saw no one, but he could feel the breeze coming through an open window somewhere in his apartment.

On the kitchen table sat a smoldering cigarette and a cup of coffee from the local franchise. Whoever was here had sat down, had a smoke, and raided his fridge.

DAY TWENTYFOUR 10:43AM

Samsara 

Pretty George sighed. "Honestly Suki..." 

Suki took a sip from the tea. "I figured your place would be more cluttered." She looked around at the small apartment. Dust in the corners, stains on the floor. A fly buzzing in the kitchenette. She had sent the reverend and her sidekick out for sandwiches; Pretty looked like he could use a meal.

He sighed again. "You're trying to change the subject." 

Suki looked squarely at him. "It's a reflex I have when I feel I'm about to be disappointed."

Pretty held her gaze. She looked good, she looked healthy. She had always seemed so aloof, cold even, when she was young. Initiated so early. The edge was still there, maybe even sharpened, but it was sheathed in something a little softer now. He had no idea where Suki had been all these years, but it seemed to agree with her. 

"Why are you back?" he asked her.

"Now you're changing the subject." 

"You haven't been in the game for a while now. I can tell. You look too happy."

"I was happy when I was playing too," Suki said, perhaps a little defensively. 

"That feeling you felt, that wasn't happiness and you know it. That rush, that charge. Purpose, yeah. Power, yeah. Strangeness, definitely. Mana maybe. But it wasn't happiness."

"Meeting Max was the best thing that ever happened to me," Suki said. 

"Me too," Pretty said. "And the worst."

They each took a sip of their tea. Pretty listened to the sound of the buzzing. Suki glanced about the dingy room. Things felt heavy. 

"Fine," Pretty said. "I'll get it for you."