C2IP Update.3

Marshal stepped into Mick's apartment. He had used a Neo-Linguistic Programming technique from a library book to convince the superintendent to give him access. Mick had only disappeared a few days ago but somehow there was already a thick layer of dust coating every surface, almost like ash. 

The kitchenette was a mess of take-out packaging. The living room was a ruin of videogame cases and controllers (many smashed in rage), cigarette butts, CD cases, sketches and hand-written poetry.

In the small bedroom (just a sleeping bag on the floor) Marshal found the map Mick had been working on, pages pasted to the wall with lines and circles connecting them, a shot straight out of a conspiracy movie. It was the outline for Mick's next novel. 

Marshal had read Illiciterati and Evanjaculist and had been eagerly awaiting Mick's newest book. Except he had been having all these strange dreams and when he performed his ritual meditations to Odin and Merlin the gods had been telling him that something more was happening, that Mick was involved in something deeper. Then Marshal had started having these really potent daydreams at work, imagining uncovering a covert war between something called The System and a group calling themselves Counter, and it was all connected to Mick's writing. The dreams and visions and daydreams became more and more intense until he was compelled to come here...

One page was titled 'Chronoplex'. The name 'Suki', 'version GrownUp?', 'version Grandma?'. 'Project Realtime?'. 'Can we access the Missing Season?'. 'Can we learn what happened during the Millennium Incident?'.

Another page labelled 'Paraplex'. 'So what happened to the Initiated Dragons?'.

The next: 'Ultraplex'. 'Are these reports that the Counter-System was broadcasting? Or are they made up? Propaganda or just fiction?'.

'Hyperplex'. 'The Plureality Dragons Upgraded'. 'The Diner Dragons?', crossed out. 'Darius?', circled and crossed out.

'Omniplex'. 'Art, journals, music, RPGs?'. 'Project Horizon?'.

'Synchroplex'. A list of dates.


'Manaplex'. Mostly illegible. 'New job?' circled. 'Project Ellipses?'.

And in marker, scrawled over many of the pages: 'BETRAYAL'.

Marshal had no idea what any of it meant but could feel that it somehow explained everything.

He also noticed a copy of a magazine on the floor. Profile Celebrations. The cover story was about a man named Vlad Akimoto. Marshal scanned the article:

International fitness business empire mogul. Founder of "The Timeless Warrior" training regime, based on ancient lost arts of body purification through testing one's physical limits, combined with the introduction into your healthy diet of designer herbal infused beverages. Proposed by some in the fashion industry that Akimoto was the father of the "hipster" movement. Rumoured a) to be majority owner in the up and coming "Citadel" independent music label, b) to have founded the online "Barbarian" clothing line which specializes in custom design t-shirts, c) to own a number of fashionable craft beer eateries in Tokyo, St Petersburg and Munich.

Why was Mick researching this guy?

What was that Barthes' essay about killing writers?

When they came for him none of his neighbours were surprised. 

For years Mick had been a 6.6-on-the-Richter-scale nuisance in the building. Loud music, loud video-games, loud movies, loud shouting at various gods and goddesses. Aileeza, the tenant in 2B ("Or not to be!" Mick would always shout at her when they passed in the hallway) would often point out that his whole shtick was a knock-off of that character in Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan. The other tenants didn't get the reference but they got the fact that Mick hated Warren Ellis and therefore hated the comparison, and they took some pleasure in that. Petty maybe, but they had endured and were entitled to some small retributions.

Evicting Mick wasn't an option, despite it being a cause that would have unified Democrat and Republican, Israeli and Palestinian, Team Angel and Team Spike. Mick's residency was secured due to the funding agreements as arranged by the local Arts Council and the local Mental Health Agency. Mick's presence was what kept the rent so low and ensured the other tenants could continue living there. 

"'There is no war, there is only the Dalang!'" Mick would shout about the way he both embodied and transcended the dualities of the situation, to which Aileeza would point out that he was only quoting Grant Morrison, another comic writer whom Mick rather liked but nevertheless resented being accused of imitating (although he most certainly was).

And so it had continued until the day it stopped. When they finally came for him. The other tenants weren't sure exactly who 'they' were, or what Mick had done to finally warrant apprehension - for all his sound and fury he never signified anything actually violent. 

Of course he did a fair bit of shouting as the men and women in nondescript clothing (the kind of outfits that operatives in those Bourne movies always wore) took him away in their black SUV. 

"I fucking made Max! He's nothing without me! If I had never taken that assignment for Opi8 he'd still just be a figment of your fucking imaginations! And who do you think has protected him all this time? Do you have any fucking clue how hard it is for him to even be in the world? If I hadn't kept all you assholes distracted with my rants and my jokes you would have seen right through him and he'd be thrice as fucked as he already is! So you thinking you're helping Max? You're fucking killing him!"

Three or four days later the tenants began commenting to each other on how unsettling the quiet was.

C2IP Update.2

The ground shook again, dislodging more rubble from the bombed-out buildings. Shadows swept across the ground from the light of the flares in the night sky, voices hollow and fuzzy with static calling out over malfunctioning sound-systems, repeating emergency protocol directions that were very 'too-little-too-late'. Mick strolled down the centre of the cracked and scorched street as if all the lights and noise were a massive party; this wasn't his first apocalypse. In a lot of ways he felt at home in disaster zones; they were somehow more honest. 

His contacts were less brazen, with good reason Mick figured, given that of the ever-increasing number of factions in what appeared to be a cold-war-turned-hot-turning-nova most likely had capture or kill orders out on them. They signalled to him with a pre-arranged series of flashlight blinks from the shadows of a ruined hotel lobby.

"Okay," Mick said, hunkered down behind the front desk. "First off, no I haven't gotten any leads on who the double-agent is. I don't doubt your intel, especially given the source, but there are so many variables in play right now...

"Second, Goner's rejoined Max, Frank and Angst, so they're active again as a cell. Plus they've gotten a lead on Mags - sounds like she's changed too.

"As for Suki, it looks like she's actually shifted along the Chronoplex - that's what we're calling it now, right? She seems to be in a much older version of herself. I know, it's not the first-time Suki's age has altered. No idea if or how she's going to intersect with the others.

"The Diner crew... Things are still different with them too... Like they're on a different frequency from the other Dragons? I dunno, I feel like something's brewing there.

"Max has got his spirit guides in play, the bird and the talking cat. Still nothing from Aqua. Oh, but get this - I found this weird urban legend about this strange warrior-monk type-guy who wanders the globe, actually walking, no planes or buses. He's this dirty bearded vagabond, stops briefly to debate about things like Confucianism or Norse Mythology. Sometimes does a bit of intervening on a street-level if there's some injustice happening, and ain't there always? There's versions of the tale where he seeks out a vision at holy places, the hidden Temple of the Sky on Everest, the sacred glass monolith at the centre of the Sahara Desert, the keystone of the Great Wall of China that contains the last essence of the demon Hrarchuta who sacrificed his immortality to save his love, the angelic Yuriti... It's great stuff; I wish I'd written it. But it's got to be our boy Akimoto, right?

"And lastly, just so I'm keeping track, so far there's the Chronoplex, the Paraplex, and the Ultraplex? Now, how about you share with me: do we know yet what exactly has kicked off this whole mess between the System and Counter-System?"

The contacts exchanged glances.

Suddenly a swarm of sirens began wailing outside and the thunder of helicopters erupted overhead. Mick sighed. "I get it, 'to be continued'."

C2IP Update.1

Mick opened the locker and removed the satchel, headed to the nearest washroom. The intercom rattled off train arrival and departure notifications in a bland, synthetic voice. A security drone hummed over the swarm of commuters. Mick had taken two capsules of Glamour before arriving at the station and run some invisibility mantras - he'd be cloaked from any surveillance for about an hour. Unless the Sidhe showed up, which meant things were fucked anyway. 

Hunkered in a stall, Mick unzipped the satchel. There was a hardcover book, one of the sourcebooks for the Aeon Triumph Gun Messiahs RPG. A pencil and a piece of paper. Mick used the book as a firm surface to write on, scrawling notes quickly with the pencil on the paper.

Four System operations identified.
Two Counter-System activities being monitored, plus one potential.

Pretty George might be dead.

Max has made contact with Dexter, Wraith and Callan - still not sure if they've joined the System or have been recruited by Counter. No contact with Darius (he's been running on a parallel stream ever since the Millennium Incident I think, which Max doesn't know much about, either because he wasn't there or can't remember).

Max is still working closely with Angst and Frank. 

Goner's gone dark. Suki seems to be missing.

Aqua disappeared with the remains of the Subway car.

I've got some rumours on Akimoto to follow-up on.

The name Summer keeps coming up...?

No confirmed contact with Maggie.

No clues yet to which one is the double-agent.

Any idea what the fuck exactly is going on?

Mick folded the paper once and tucked it inside the book. He noticed the page he had randomly opened to: the description and stats for one of the Vatars that players could summon once they reached level 13 as a Gun Messiah. 'The Void'. 

He shivered. Then sneered. Mick was not the superstitious type.

v.Thespian

It's almost time for the Annual Morningstar Festival of One-Act Plays and the Jones Heights community theatre troupe Noo Media Productions needs a hit. For the last five years they have come in last in the competition, while popular (and well-funded) groups like Legacy Stage or The Angus Mode Players take home the trophies. It's all supposed to be a fun, friendly contest, but it's theatre and that means a lot of feelings and a lot of egos are involved...

So how are NMP looking this year? Well, the Board decided to bring in a first-time Director, Mallory Magrielle. And she decided to mount a production of a notoriously difficult play called 'Maxed to the Third Power'. Will great risk bring great reward? Except that the Set Designer Miguel Rogen and the Costume Designer Charlotte Stang are constantly arguing over what period the story is set in, while the Director refuses to weigh in because she feels that "conflict is essential to the creation of great art". Which has left Suki Fujimoria, the Stage Manager, over-worked and highly stressed - and Suki is known for her temper. No one has seen the Musical Director (and local DJ) Vlad Tiamook in over week; apparently he is furiously remixing the entire soundtrack to a create a "meta-temporal vibe" that will fit with whichever setting wins out, Rogen's or Stang's.

As for the cast... Ms. Magrielle gave the Lead Female role to Jones Heights' only (semi)famous citizen, Marnie Waters, who had a (semi)successful stint as a pop diva. Pandering or a subtle critique of celebrity? And instead of giving the Lead Male role to the long-standing, well-respected, troupe mainstay Frank Thamin - who thought the part could be his Prospero, but will instead be playing the Narrator - Ms. Magrielle cast THREE unknowns. That's right, she's having one character played by three different actors! How exactly Marshal Montgomery, Simon Light and Mick Scribe will split up the dialogue and action remains a closely-guarded secret.

Will opening night bring triumph or tragedy? Rave reviews or farcical folly?