DAY THIRTEEN 4:13AM

Forest Through The Trees 

Max was naked and covered in sweat. The paint on his body losing its contrast and beginning to blend in, making it seem like the patterns were moving. 

He sat there in the lotus position, finger and thumb still clenched, eyes closed and letting the heat and the feel of the smoke wash over him. He was beyond tired, beyond sleep, he was beyond it all.

The drumming continued. The chanting of an old native man, intermixed with the young woman's trill, continued on, echoing through his mind, becoming part of the soundscape. Imagery, faces, events, situations, watches, cards, houseflies and emotions going through him like a wave on a distant shore. 

The chanting continued, the drums as well; it seemed to pick up a little pace. Max was lost to it.

"Awnee, Max." 

Max's eyes flickered open; the pupils were like reflections of torchlight in a pond.

"What can I do for you?" the wolf asked. 

Max was standing in an open field where the 13 moons were shining overhead, intermixed with reflections from distant stars. With a hint of darkness and light from all around the horizon, like sunrise and sunset. Here he was in twilight.

A campfire lighting up the area around him, in the shadows of the trees he could make out red eyes, green eyes, black eyes all staring down upon him. He could feel their hunger, but he wasn't scared. 

"I think you know," Max told the wolf.

The wolf changed to the image of an old native man, who sat cross-legged across from him. Naked, covered in symbolic tattoos. "I cannot fight your demons for you. It is you and you alone who can face them."

OMEGA STATION TWELVE

54.A-2457
ee.dx.98 

“At this point the Cube’s implants will have become active. They will have been triggered by his use of tactical engagement against LEGACY. He will be doubting his course of action, feeling responsible for bringing conflict to the Aggregation of Variables. He will feel remorse at having to resort to violence. He will start to feel lost and alone. 

“The Cube will employ his standard array of Trances: Hunter to seek out LEGACY, Sage to analyze their agenda, Shadow to evade capture. The implants will continue to emit disruption frequencies targeting each Trance. He will wonder why he must always end up fighting, what choices he has made that always lead him back to the war. He will suspect that his belief in a LEGACY agenda for the church is a lie to mask his guilt over disrupting their sanctuary; that he secretly resents them for having something he never did. That he tricked them into running because he couldn’t bear to be with them. 

“The implants will begin tagging and enhancing any neuroforms that ascribe Causality to the Cube. That make him the source of what went wrong. He will begin to doubt the ontological status of any memories he has that provide Continuity, including the Dragons, the Metaplex, even Plureality. If he remains isolated enough for long enough, Version Null will begin to generate. 

“The threat of LEGACY will become the only Certainty, the only ground to the figure of his thoughts and actions. He will need them, like an addict. This is the standard equation. This is how it always happens. The trajectories launched by this iteration of the Cube will with 100 percent probability intersect with the vectors of Simon Light.”

Morganfokker pauses from dictating his report. His eyes look briefly haunted. 

“And that will be the end of Max.”

DAY TWELVE 7:27AM

The Colour Of Scent 

Mayganne awoke to the sound of a cellphone chirping. It sounded like an FX from one of those cheesy sci-fi shows you would see on a specialty channel. For some reason it made her think of home, and her brother the sci-fi geek. He would be in paradise if he only knew the truth. But in this version she didn't have a brother. 

The swelling had gone down in her left eye, so she could make out very blurry images about her. Her right eye was bandaged and useless at the moment.

She made out the form of the woman, who appeared to be tall and angelic in nature. She chalked that up to the morning sun through the window. But her eyes' fine-tuning wasn't kicking in, so the woman remained part of the static of her vision. 

"Professor," the woman said into the phone. "It's good to hear you voice. What little of it that I can hear."

Mayganne turned and she could make out Scorpio's form sitting on the floor by the side of the bed. His head was on the bed, and he was snoring a little. Her first reaction was of revulsion and she wanted to shove him away. Then she remembered that for the past two days he had been watching over her and tending to her like an orderly. 

It would be a long way to trust, but forgiveness was right there waiting to see.

"I missed him, I tried the diner but it's gone. Yes. Gone. Burnt, destroyed. Well, no shit Sherlock," the woman replied into the phone with a hint of smugness hidden in her tone. "I figured that. I checked the Brownstone and it's been vacant. Looks like for years. It's a squatter's paradise."

Mayganne saw the glass of water beside her bed and reached for it. But before she could touch the glass Scorpio had reached up and gotten it for her. 

"Thanks," Mayganne rasped through dry lips.

Scorpio just nodded. He knew there was nothing he could say. 

"The connection is getting worse. But don't worry. I'm hot on his trail." The woman looked at the phone and shook her head and then turned to Mayganne. "You okay, dear?" 

"I think so, now," Mayganne replied as Scorpio automatically took the glass of water from her hands and placed it on the table.

"I tried those numbers you gave me," the woman said. "No one is answering." 

"It's worse than I thought," Mayganne replied, sitting up some. The pain in her ribs made her wince. Scorpio was right there fluffing up the pillow, behind her back. "Everything has been compromised. In this version, at least. I think I know where they are heading to."

"Well, if you are up to the task of moving, I'd say we better start moseying," Suki told her.

DAY ELEVEN 22:22PM

Fragrances 

Simon Light read through the police report. He sat on the desk, going through the files like he owned the world. Stone was pouring himself another cup of coffee, and taking a sip from it. It was late and he was tired. And he didn't feel like playing second fiddle to an Alphabet Man as well. A man that had apparently pulled a lot of strings and flexed a lot of muscle to waltz into a police station and tell the chief to take a breath of fresh air. 

"Eff-Bee-Eye," he muttered after taking a sip from the coffee mug. "Those bastards hear a rumour that a potential terrorist farts and they close down a city."

"Take it easy, Stone," Riveta warned him. "Piss a fellow like that off and he could bust your ass down to metermaid." 

"I don't look good in a skirt," Stone muttered before taking another sip.

Riveta chuckled. 

Simon stopped at a photo and focused in on the face off to one side. His eyes narrowed to study the face closely and a smile widened on his robot-like face. The smile made him seem not friendly, but menacing.

"Detective." Simon took the photo and dropped the rest of the file onto the desk, spilling some of the contents about. Simon saw that Stone and Riveta were approaching. 

"Find something?" Riveta inquired. Her curiosity was piqued; it had to be in order for her to continue without falling asleep.

"Where was this photo taken?" Simon asked. He held the photo in his hands like it was an ancient artifact and he was afraid to get it dirty. 

"Yesterday," Riveta said. "We always have a photographer get a few crowd shots on the off chance that the criminal returns to admire his handy work."

"You recognize a face?" Stone asked. He leaned forward to peer at the photo. 

"The woman there." Light pointed at a Japanese woman who appeared to be in her 30's.

"Is she dangerous?" Stone inquired. He couldn't see the dangerous look about her. He'd been on the force for 22 years and he had come to be a good judge of character. 

"Suki Fujimoria," Light said as he stared at the woman. "She's suppose to be dead."

DAY ELEVEN 21:04PM

Roadtrip  

Alice looked up at the stars. "I think I should call him." 

Donnelly added another stick to the campfire. They had the grounds to themselves - not many people were camping this time of year. There were seven tents in total, some scrounged, some bought hurriedly, different sizes, and some people were sleeping in their cars. It was the fourth time Alice had said she was going to call Max, but each time she hadn't. He had made it clear that he would reach them once he had finished up. They were only to call him if it was an emergency. The last six days had felt like one long emergency. The weight of the handgun was heavy in the reverend's coat pocket. He had had nightmares about the ritual every night since it had happened.

Susanna was singing some children to sleep in the large blue tent. 

Alice wasn't very old in terms of the calendar, but she had many different worlds behind her, passed through like the rings in a tree trunk. She had brought most of them together. It fell to him and others, like Susanna and Hank, to keep them together. Sometimes they would lose some to a shift - maybe they had lost many, but lost their memories of them too when the world had changed and changed again. Donnelly knew Alice felt responsible. Maybe even guilty in a way.

He had spent many nights reassuring her. Reminding her that her gift was helping people. He wanted to reassure her now, but he knew things were different this time. That they hadn't shifted, but that the world had changed. His words didn't mean the same thing anymore. The church didn't mean the same thing. Now that they had learned about LEGACY. 

It hurt her to think that somehow she had been serving the goals of evil men. But she clearly trusted Max's assessment; that's why they were here, out of the city, on the run. Not everyone did; there were many who still marked the start of the troubles with Max's arrival. And they weren't exactly wrong. He had asked Alice why she had decided to trust Max; her answer had been a strange one. She said that he had written out a list of names, to see if she knew any of them. The fourth name on the list had been her mother's nickname when she was younger. 'Angst'.

Donnelly supposed his own reason wasn't any less strange. He had faith in Max. 

Alice looked down at the fire. "Maybe I should call him."

DAY TEN 14:56PM

The Endless Beginnings 

Detective Stone knelt down amongst the rubble and shifted some of the debris with a pen from his pocket. A ring. Melted away but still maintained its shape. It could mean something or nothing at all. 

A fire had gutted this place, but it had seemed suspicious when it had appeared to burn down in less than ten minutes. He took a small brown envelope from his jacket and slid the ring into it. With the pen he scratched down the date and time and the place he found it. Stone was very thorough in his work. 

"You think this has any connection with the dead body half a block away?" his partner, Det. Riveta asked. She was looking into some debris on the counter. "It's too close to be coincidental."

Stone stood up and stretched. He glanced around the place and remembered that he had come here for coffee on a few occasions. The waitress, Arlene... Arliss..., her name at the moment slipped his mind. But he knew it began with an A. 

"What was the vic's name?" he asked of his partner.

"Lon Lugerelli," Riveta replied after consulting her note pad. "He was a snitch for the police a few years back. I guess he got pricey and they dropped him from the program." 

"Snitches," Stone replied. "They have no loyalty. Only greed."

DAY NINE 11:11AM

Reckoning Song 

When Mayganne came to she could hear Scorpio's voice. He sounded like he was talking to someone in the room, and her head was not on some hard cement floor but a pillow. Her face was bandaged up and she couldn't see anyone if she tried. 

"I'm sorry, so sorry. You understand it was only my job. I was ordered to do those things, right?" his voice had the tone of a repentant man asking forgiveness.

Mayganne continued to feign unconsciousness. 

"I understand." The voice was definitely female and it seemed to hold a note of authority and sorrow at the same time. "We do things that we have to do in order to survive. Sometimes those things go against our own morals and beliefs."

Mayganne could hear the sound of a cloth in a wash basin, and she presumed it was Scorpio who was wringing water out to apply to her wounds. 

"You're feeling better," the statement from the woman was aimed at her. Which made Mayganne ponder a few doubtful seconds before replying.

"Yes."

DAY EIGHT 11:53AM

Prophecy 

Hank took a deep breath. Johannesberg toyed with his eyebrow ring. Laughter trickled down from the dorms; Susanna had organized some kind of game for the others to play. She was a great addition to the group, a teacher. She still worked professionally; the last shift had changed the location of her school, but the students still knew her. 

"I hate to see it all fall apart," Hank said. He scratched his beard. Jo kept quiet. He looked a little uncomfortable seeing the big man get so emotional.

"It's bullshit," Hank continued. "This one guy shows up and suddenly people are going missing, then he's got the Father convinced we're part of some big conspiracy. Bullshit." 

"I don't know..."

Hank rounded on the young man. He had a flash of grabbing the kid by his mohawk and ramming his face into the door. It had been a long time since those outbursts of rage; part of his former life. But since Luger had disappeared, then the Father, then Mayganne, Hank had started to feel the surges of violence return. Father Donnelly had returned in the middle of the night, but spouting nonsense, and Hank wasn't feeling any better. 

"What do you mean 'you don't know'?"

"How about we wait and see what Mother says?" 

Hank felt his hand tighten into a fist. "Fine. I'm going for a walk." He started down the hall. He heard Susanna's voice calling out instructions for the game. Johannesberg caught up to him.

"Hank, listen. Please." The older man took another deep breath. Jo continued. "K, you're gonna think this is nuts too. But I have to tell someone. You wonder why I don't seem worried about this Max guy..." 

"Things have gotten worse since he showed up."

"Well, stranger anyway. If that's possible. But listen... The thing is... I saw this anime when I was younger, and the main character... Well, the series was called Aeon Triumph Gun Messiahs-" 

The door opened to Mother's room.

"I've made a decision," Alice said.

DAY EIGHT 7:40AM

Sugarcoating 


Her eyes were swelling shut so she couldn't see the next fist. It connected to her temple again, a ring, had looked like a high school ring she thought, took another chuck of flesh off her face. 

I'm dying, she thought. Maybe I can finally find peace.  

At least she could still hear clear as a bell out of her left ear; her right ear was caked over with blood.  

"I don't get it," the one called Scorpio said. He was the one with the ring. "Why are we working her over? She's just a girl for christ sake."  

"Getting soft in your old age are we, Scorp," the other, named Quip, chided his partner. "We just follow orders. Do what needs to be done. No questions."  

"But this ain't right," Scorpio said. She could hear the hint of disgust in his voice. "She's just a kid."  

"Maybe you want to be the one sitting there getting the facial reconstruction," Quip told his partner.  

Mayganne had seen a lot in her 17 years of life. She was born in the lower slums in what she gathered was her Prime Version before the realities began to blur. She had fought her way against the stereotypical downfall that her mother had gone through. There was no way that she wanted to end up like her mother. In fact, she was sort of glad that this was quite the distance away from her mother's path.  

"Well, I ain't doing what they want to do to her next," Scorpio said; his voice showed that little quiver in a man's voice when he had to face the tough decisions. "I draw the limit at that. No friggin' way man."  

"Man, you're wimping out," Quip scolded his partner. "Can't you wrap it around your mind that this girl is..."  

There was a sound of a window shattering in another room.

DAY SEVEN 18:21PM

The Jigsaw Jig
 
Max closed the door to the warehouse. The night air was cold, refreshing after the smells of gunpowder and blood, incense and woodsmoke. 

Donnelly rubbed his arms. “I really didn't think it would work... They're all dead."

Max slipped fresh clips into his pistols, offered Joy back to the reverend. “It doesn't always.” 

The Father looked shocked at the admission and confused at the offer. “You mean it might not have? I won't need that anymore, since-”

Max put the gun in the man's hand, went about lighting a cigarette. “That was only a cell, like I told you. And the ritual... Well, not even a god's plan always works out.” 

Donnelly nodded, glanced at the weapon he was holding. “I guess mine's didn't.” He slipped the gun into his coat pocket.

Max nudged him to start walking. “So, we switch from fugitive-warrior mode to crafty-detective. Who ratted to LEGACY?” 

“And why did they come after me? You said they could have taken all of us out anytime they wanted.”

Max stopped at the corner and looked up and down the city street. Normal evening traffic. He spotted a coffee shop and started walking again. “They followed me there.” 

“And why were you there?” Donnelly asked.

Max's eyes flickered from shadows to pedestrians to cars to shop windows. “I wanted to talk to you, about the sermons you deliver at the Rave. About the group you're gathering.” 

“It's a church. Or that's how I see it. But not a stale and static institution, like so many have become. A real living community of people who are lost, who need each other.”

Max nodded, thoughtful. He held open the door to the coffee shop. They found a table, the waitress brought coffee over. It was another type of ritual, one Max had used throughout plureality. 

“And it's Alice who sends most of the people to the Rave?” Max continued once they were settled and warming up. The reverend looked exhausted; they had been on the run a long time. 

“It's not always the Rave; that's the location we've used for the past few shifts. It was Mayganne and Johannesberg's turn to design one. But yes, Mother finds most of the lost folk.” 

Max sipped his coffee. He imagined what it would have been like, to be found by someone like her, like Father Donnelly and the rest, found sooner. Before so many bad things had happened. But the bad things were still happening... 

“Father,” Max said. “There's a problem. You wondered why LEGACY hadn't moved on you or your friends earlier... The only reason could be that somehow your church is helping their agenda.” 

Donnelly's cup rattled in the saucer. “That's absurd! Are you implying that-”

Max raised his hand calmly. “I'm just saying that maybe it's time we talked to Mother.”

DAY SIX 20:27PM

Tic

Mayganne didn't know what the hell was going on, but she knew her world, this current version of the world, just got wilder. Not because of a shift in reality, but due to a major factor named Max. 

Ever since he came into the fold, strange things had begun to unravel as if the cosmic cloth had a tear. She was going to get to the bottom of things one way or another. 

She knew that she was being followed, but she couldn't see who it was or what they wanted. She figured them to be suits of some kind; maybe one of the Alphabet Soup group that had received some word of a fringe cult. 

First Luger had disappeared. Then Donnelly too; the strange part that he wasn't answering his cellphone either. It seemed like they were being picked off one by one. She had wanted to confide in Mother before doing what she thought needed to be done. 

She checked her long coat once again for the feel of the .38 like it was a cobra ready to strike. 

Max Cube must die.

DAY SIX 13:09 PM

Yggdrasil

All around them the roots of the massive skyscraper tree churned, coiling like dragons, rising and falling like tidal waves. The bark twitched like veins, the branches arched up into the impossibly vast night, interstellar winds tangling them amongst stars, galaxies and comets snared like kite-strings. 

"Just keep the candles lit!" Max shouted to the reverend. The air was raw with the sound of crows, their prophetic wings, their rough warnings. 

"The stones... They're starting to... they're turning into smoke!" Father Donnelly shouted back. Each little stone had cost them two dollars at Witch Way To Go. The candles were three dollars each, and Donnelly was having a hell of a time scampering back and forth to each point of the pentagram with Max's lighter as the flames guttered in the tempestuous air. 

"That means he's starting to manifest!" Max stared up at the World Tree. Cracks started to rip open in the trunk, light shining forth, like a violent aurora borealis. The light seemed to illuminate a figure sprawled against the huge trunk, invisible before. A massive man, bound, bleeding, one-eyed. The veins in the bark suddenly snapped into angled shapes - Donnelly recognized some of them from jewelry he had seen, some type of runes - and the crows' voices became like thunder. 

Max had told him they were going to meet with a contact, one that might have some clues as to how to deal with LEGACY. This wasn't exactly what the reverend had in mind. 

Max turned to look at Donnelly. "Father, meet the AllFather."

DAY FIVE 12:44PM

Hide and Go 

The Father stood up and smoothed his slacks. "I can't wait here any longer. I have to warn them."

Max glanced over the edge of the rooftop, looking for the glint of light reflecting off a scope. Listening past the wind for a gunshot. So he would know which direction to shoot back when the reverend took a bullet. 

Nothing happened. Max exhaled, then stood up beside Donnelly. "That was really stupid."

"It's been over an hour since the last sign of them." 

Max frowned at him. "I told you, they're hunters, they're patient."

The reverend turned away, back toward the stairwell leading down into the brownstone. Max grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him back. "How dare you !?" Donnelly shouted. 

Max shoved the barrel of Joy under the reverend's chin. "And I told you, you've been compromised already. If they wanted to hit the Rave, or the Diner, they would have already."

The Father took a deep breath, looked at Max's eyes, the way they flickered between steel and tears, dusk and fireworks. Mother had been right about him, he was transdimensional, like Mayganne and Luger, Hank and Johannesberg, and the rest. But there was something different about him too. 

Max lowered the gun. "Look, I know how important your team is to you... I had a team once too. I know you'd risk anything to protect them. They're the only thing that feels real when everything else can change so suddenly, so completely..."

Father Donnelly nodded. Max reversed Joy in his hand and offered it to the reverend. "Well, right now we're each other's team." 

The Father's hand was shaking as he took the pistol. "Okay... What's the plan?"

"I need an occult shop," Max said.