Out of Sync

"What makes you think that it's a trap?" Suki asked; she stood behind Max, looking past him down at the street. "It seems fine to me."

Max held up a finger, and then he pointed to an alley further down the street. "Watch the shadows," he said softly to her.

Suki was about to say that it was night and there was no shadow to begin with, but that's when she caught movement in the darkness.

"Is it them?"

"They are waiting," he replied.

Watch

Things come here from backwards and forwards. Events occur in sideways, shockwaves happen like illnesses or car crashes. Here's where everything has been a threat or will be a threat. Where the fork in your potatoes was used to stab someone, where the blue wallpaper matches the sky on the day of his funeral. The scent of lilacs is how her perfume smells the day she leaves. Monsters can take the shape of anything, their claws becoming a song on the radio, their fangs unanswered phonecalls, their wings spreading vast over childhoods filled with  suns. Things twist here and become knives. Things turn breath into acid here. 

Magriel floats above the hundred horizons, eyes focused between everywhere and anywhere. She gently raises the crystal vial from around her neck to catch the latest tear falling from her cheek. The flames of her sword snap in the cold then hot wind. In these moments between attacks she sometimes imagines slowly emptying the vial into the wound of a man who has been shot protecting her. It is another monster, she knows, but it feels warmer than the rest.

It's Only Make-Believe

The man on the bed began to come to.

Well, it's about time. The man heard as his eyes flickered open to a bright fluorescent overhead.

Two men and a woman, all dressed in white smocks, approached the man as he began to regain consciousness.

"Welcome back stranger," the woman said with a smile. "I thought for sure you were a goner."

"His recovery is amazing," one of the men said.

"Why wouldn't it be," the other fellow interjected. "After all he is the perfect specimen."

"What's going on?" the man on the bed asked. "I'm... who am I?"

"This is not a good sign..."

"I told you we shouldn't have taken him off just yet," the younger male said. "His mind is a blank."

"Just give him a moment or two," the woman interjected. "It could be the effect of the serum."

Impaired Visual

EXT. CAR - MORNING
Two LEGACY members sit in a black sedan in a parking lot outside a rundown building. Cell 1 is a bald black man holding a strange pair of binoculars. Cell 2 is a young latino woman sitting behind the steering wheel.

CELL 1:
Unable to maintain visual. Switching to ultrasight, now.

CELL 2:
Verification Niner-One-Oh.

CELL 1:
Unable to locate. Targets must have shifted.

CELL 2:
Informing HQ. Relaying negative.

The Art of Being

He meets her gaze tentatively.

They look into each others' eyes for what seems to be an eternity.

"No," Mags finally says."No, it couldn't be..."

Her hands go to his cheek. He steps back. "This doesn't make sense," she adds with a whisper.

"Look lady," Max said. He looks around for any sign of security. "You are starting to scare me."

Brainwash Interruptus

"Not all of consciousness is this strange," the Fokkerbot assured the young woman, its synthetic voice approximating a soothing tone. "Of course parts are stranger." 

"This... It's like one of the stories the Eighth Tribe used to tell," Tatterdemalion said, her eyes roving about the polished-steel surfaces of the Lab. Her eyes were lined with tattooed lace-work, thick like goth eyeliner. Her black hair was still damp with goo from the bizarre extraction pod that had swallowed her off the planet.

The Fokkerbot angled its polished-steel head. "The abduction legends of the Eighth Tribe are actually based in fact. Although they themselves do not realize it." Tatter rolled dreamily onto her side. The long polished-steel table felt oddly comfortable. Clean. 

"Can you make... Can you make me like this place?" she asked. "I want to..."

"You're tired of feeling soft and dirty. I can make you like polished steel." 

Tatter tried to focus her gaze on the other person who had just quietly entered the room. The Fokkerbot continued. "I will forge you into a weapon. And you will hunt my prey." The lights on the robot's face blinked some more as it called up an image of a man, stubbly and tired looking, on a screen. The pic was labelled 'Cube'. 

"Oh," Tatter said. "You mean the guy right behind you?"

The Nowheresville Garage Depot Blues

"Looks like your rad's shot, ma'am," the mechanic said as he was leaning over the engine block and also peering down into the motor as well. "And it seems like you got no oil in your pan as well." 

"Oh poo," Maggie said as she leaned her head on the steering wheel.

"I told you we should have did that overhaul thing-a-jiggy," Angst told her. Angst was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, looking at the visor mirror while applying ruby red lipstick. "Now we are stuck in the middle of nowheresville." 

The hood of the car slammed down into its place and the mechanic walked around to the driver side door, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth. "Looks like you're not going anywhere for a bit at least."

"Well, thanks for that update..." Maggie said as she looked at the mechanic's name badge, "Max." 

"So you ladies heading somewhere in a hurry?" Max questioned them.

"Yo, Max!" Morganfokker shouted as he stepped from the shadows of the garage. "I got the Legacy's on the blower. They want to know if you have their car ready." 

"It's sitting in the shade now," Max replied. He shot Maggie a wink and then he turned to face Morganfokker. "They can come by anytime and pick it up."

Little Girl, Big Gun

The subway was approaching and Goner stood up from the bench. He was glad to hear it approach since he was getting a creepy feeling on the platform. 

Suki was skipping along with a jump-rope. She was good at keeping herself occupied when dull moments like these occurred.

"Must you skip?" Goner asked her. 

"Must you whine?" Suki shot back as she skipped past him.

It was hard to imagine that the girl was still a child. But my goodness, could she fire that cannon she had hanging off her side like a shoulder purse.

Like Watching Air Move

Wraith was hunkered down on the building's ledge. Perched like one of those gargoyles you find on an old building in the city. The wind whipping her long black hair about her face, as she surveyed the cityscape. 

Up here above the city, she felt like a goddess. A more nurturing mother who guarded her child with the ferocity of a rabid dog if someone should come to harm's way.

Dressed in black, her mask making her look more like a superhero than a warrior. She had donned the mask to see if it made a difference. 

"What am I doing?" she whispered. "Do I really want to go through with this?"

And like a sign, a cry for help arose in the night from a few blocks over. 

Wraith turned to face the plea and then like the wind she was gone.

Just Like Me, Maybe...

Maggie fired several shots into the darkness. Spent shells ejected from the gun and danced on the floor around her. 

Angst was still reloading another clip into the uzi. Her cheerleader outfit ripped and torn and splattered with dried blood and what looked to be brain matter as well.

"So you think you got the hang of it?" Maggie asked her. "Because if you're looking for more pointers, it will have to wait." 

Angst looked at Maggie, with a look of bewilderment in her eyes. She couldn't believe that she had stepped into a chapter of the twilight zone.

 

From A Jack To A King

Izzard smiled. He always smiled when he knew something the others didn't. It made him cocky that way. 

"What is it?" Aqua questioned. She leaned forward on the table to eye the device more clearly. "Is it a clock of some sort?"

The device was in the shape of an alarm clock, with gears on the outside rotating round and round. It looked like some high school kid's perpetual motion machine project. 

Dexter eyed Izzard carefully, reading his body movements. Gestures and facial expressions. They were entrenched skills he had developed over the years he had served on the NYPD. He wasn't sure that he really trusted that bum in the first place.

"Be careful," Dexter warned. "For all we know it could be an explosive of some kind." 

That made Izzard's smile grow more. Dexter hefted his bat up to have it ready to send that mechanical device flying.

Aqua touched the object and it seemed to shiver. Her eyes opened up in surprise. "It's alive."

A Rose By Any Other Name

"You okay, Max?" the fellow asked him. Max's head was still swimming, lost in a fog of thoughts and memories which seemed to be in a swirl of dreamlike spools. 

"I think so," he asked, his voice husky as if coming from an antiquated stereo system. "What happened?"

The fellow looked over at Max and a smile spread across his lips. Max couldn't place where he had met this man before, though the eyes had that haunting familiarity about them; but in the Metaplex anything was possible. 

"Don't you remember anything?" the man asked. "The snake men? The giant robot? The enchantress?"

Max shook his head no to each question; his brain seemed to be blank much like a switchboard after the operator had gone for a coffee break. "Not really. Though I do have a vague dream-like deja vu about it." 

Max's eyes were adjusting to the dim light around him. He could tell they were inside someplace vast and dark, and that he was lying on a hard cold stone floor.

He brought up his hand to rub his eyes and that's when he noticed his fingernails, and that's when he realized he had breasts. 

"Surprise," the man said and Max could tell with the hint in the voice that it was Maggie.

Come What May

Max just wanted to have a cup of coffee and a smoke; he didn't want to get into fight, but damned if he was just going to sit and let something like this go unchecked. 

"Oh look the old timer is getting upset," Hood said mockingly. "What's the matter old man? You want me to get off your lawn?"

Hood had turned back to give a wink back at his other two buddies, which gave Max the second he needed. His hand reached up and grabbed Hood's earring and tore it from its once secured place. 

Hood screamed out in pain. Max stepped forward and brought up his right hand and connected with Hood's jaw, sending him spinning around like a lopsided top.

Hood's two young friends started to come forward but stopped dead in their tracks. 

Kelly, the waitress, had appeared over the counter holding onto an axe handle and told them point blankly, "I would turn around and walk out that door now."

Hood staggered away from Max, giving Kelly the evil eye as he passed her. He made a detour around her as he did so. 

"You want another mug, Max?" Kelly asked of Max as the door closed and the thugs ran off.

"I would like another cup if you don't mind," Max said as he took out his cellphone and hit a speed dial number; he knew well enough by now that those bangers would be back in full force. It was time to fight fire with fire.