Post by Al David on Jan 29, 2021 21:58:45 GMT
>Accessing SPIRITnet Archive…<
>/filename Father<
>…<
>Father (first appearance: [[REDACTED]]) is the Supreme Leader of the Imperial Republic of Japan and the Chief Executive Officer of Rising Spirit Enterprises (f. 2074).
Father founded The Legion with General RJ Brande (2099).
Father organized The SPIRITnet (2101), constructed San Fransokyo (formerly known as San Francisco) (2101), and annexed Neo Japan (formerly known as California) after [[REDACTED]]…<
>Password encrypted<
>…<
>…incorrect password…<
>…<
>Files locked<
>Admin privileges revoked<
>MESSAGE: Please wait. A Legionbot will arrive shortly.
Failure to comply will result in your arrest (Article 21.A5 of the Neo Japan Accords).<
Chapter 1: Welcome to San Fransokyo
By Al David
If earlier that night, Lula Lee had known she was sentencing her friends to die…she wouldn’t have done anything differently. The mission was all that mattered.
The war depended upon their success.
That’s what she told herself, anyway, as she hid in a janitor’s closet with The Weapon, her heart hammering over the sounds of battle. A blinking red light on the storage cube’s surface reminded her of her impotence. She thought she could open it, use The Weapon – their goal, their MacGuffin, a weapon constructed by Father to end the war. With it, she could save them all and kill Father, but the cube was encrypted. She didn’t have the SPIRITkey to access it.
She just had to hide while The Legion murdered her favorite people in the world.
It was fine. Totally fine. This was the plan. They knew what they were getting into when they raided Rising Spirit HQ. They had their roles. It didn’t matter if Lula was armed with a doomshot. Didn’t matter that Wasabi had trained her. She was a thief. The rest of her team, they were the real rebels. Soldiers.
A peek outside and she flinched against the green flash of doomrounds. Dozens of gilded Legionbots soared about like supers from the Age of Heroes. C’mon, Go Go… she thought. Where’s that opening?
Lula felt the heat from the bot’s thrusters before she saw it. The Legionbot dropped in front of the closet, smoke fuming out of its blacksteel boots. It almost looked like Iron Man, what for its knight-like features and gilded plate. But this steel fucker didn’t have an arc reactor heart; it didn’t have a heart at all.
“Citizen Lula Lee,” it announced, scanning her with its dead green eyes. “Surrender. Or be terminated.”
“Eat my ass.” Lula raised her doomshot, but the Legionbot was a faster draw. Its blaster-hand aimed automatically and singed her hand. She dropped the pistol.
“Final warning,” said the Legionbot.
VRAROOM! Lights out. Literally. The whole first floor of Rising Spire went dark. The Legionbot slumped, deactivated. Lula could hear others crash to the ground outside.
A lithe hand shoved the bot over. Go Go Tomago grimaced, very much the worse for wear. Her left eye was clouded with blood. Blaster fluid and sweat wet her hair in messy black clumps. But even exhausted, even with her golden hyperskater depowered and weighing her down, she looked like a superhero. Butcher bless her.
“Give me the doomshot,” Go Go said.
Lula shook her head. “You should take the cube and run.”
“We don’t have time to argue. The EMP won’t last long…”
It was their hail mary, and indeed, the Legionbots were already rebooting. They had seconds, a minute at best.
“You’re faster,” Lula insisted.
“You’re the symbol, Lula.” Go Go pulled her to her feet. “I’m just a soldier.”
“Not to me.”
Go Go smiled, and for half a second Lula’s world lit up. Then, she turned and called, “Fred, it’s time.”
“I know.” Fred was leaning over a blonde woman on the floor. Even from afar, Lula could see the smoldering black hole in Honey Lemon’s head. Tears fled freely down Fred’s cheeks as removed the glowing gammapill from his fannypack. He looked up, murder in his eyes. “Run, Lula. Don’t argue. Just run.”
“We got you,” said Wasabi. He was stuck in place, his depowered mechsuit too heavy to move. It whirred, reactivating in tandem with the Legionbots. Wasabi made it from stolen Legion tech, so she knew he meant it when he said, “You got thirty seconds, now twenty-nine, so get going.”
Lula bit her lip. She hated it -- HATED it -- but she nodded. “I love you guys.”
“We love you too, kid,” Go Go replied right as Fred said, “I know.”
“Butcher’s balls!” Fred cried. “That was my moment! My big Han Solo— AHH, fuck you!”
“Fred!” Wasabi warned.
“Relax. I’m taking it.”
And Lula was already running, the storage cube curled in her arm like a football. As she threw the sliding glass doors open, she heard Fred groan, then scream. He didn’t deserve to suffer like this. No one did. But he volunteered to take the gammapill, their last resort. It was his sacrifice to make. “After all,” he’d say, “my pops invented it.”
A bestial roar sounded behind her as she ran into a crowd of panicked civilians. Some brave few filmed Fred’s transformation with their QPhones. The air came alive with the cry of Legionbots.
Then a static smell like a thundercloud filled her nostrils.
KRACKOOOM! The walls of Rising Spire exploded. Lula used the storage cube for cover as glass rained down. No. No, fuck no, the generals weren’t supposed to show. They were in Genten for the megacorp summit. They couldn’t be fast enough—
Terrified civilians shoved at one another in the crowded San Fransokyo street in a desperate bid to flee as the Godzilla-creature that had once been Fred collapsed through the Rising Spire.
Lula froze, mouth agape. A white shadow fell with Fredzilla, its blade in his neck.
He’s real. Butcher slay me, he’s actually real.
The assassin rose atop the toppled, monstrous corpse, unshaken by the radioactive blood that covered his snow-white skin. A rising sun, crimson and proud, glistened upon his naked chest. Blank white eyes stared out from beneath his midnight headpiece, and found Lula. With one smooth stroke, the Ghost of Neo Japan tore his sword from his victim’s neck.
I’m dead. We’re all dead.
Rai had arrived.
---
One of the unfortunate things about life is it’s defined by moments, and we rarely know which ones until after they’ve passed. If Fred knew that drunkenly hooking up with Go Go would’ve soured his relationship with Honey Lemon forever, he wouldn’t have done it. But he did, and their relationship went nowhere, and he lost himself to anipulp and booze. The revolution took over their lives, Honey Lemon died, and now he was dying. Game over.
His life was full of similar fuckery. Opportunities wasted because he couldn’t see ‘em coming. Sometimes life gives you Honey Lemons and you throw them away because you’re an anxious asshole who can’t talk about his feelings.
Most turning points and character-defining acts have no build-up, no dramatic tension with which to predict the gamechanger, to plan the best course of action. So when one presents itself, as grand and predictable as the Death Star’s destruction, you gotta love it. Gotta make the most of it. No excuses.
So he volunteered for the mission. He took dad’s gammapill. He fought even after his best friends died around him. And now, with Rai’s back turned to him, he could save the day.
He could save Lula, that stupid sweet girl.
No fuckery this time. His lungs wheezed as gamma-green blood clogged them. He couldn’t focus all that well. He was dying, but that was no excuse.
Muscles screaming, he whipped his great green claw out, and knocked Rai to kingdom come.
He wanted to tell Lula to run, wanted to tell her not to waste her life like he had, to not waste this Death Star moment. But his lungs were a radioactive swamp, and he couldn’t hold his eyes open any longer, and the darkness took him.
Did I make Honey Lemon proud?
---
Lula pinched her nose against the rancid air and dropped into the pothole. She waded through the muck, The Weapon tight in her grip, going. Not thinking, just going. She couldn’t think about…about…
Tears stung her eyes. She wiped them away, and kept going.
Thank you, Fred. You hit a homerun. Rai got knocked a thousand feet in the air. He was dead. Probably. Probably…not. Just run!
After a few minutes of nonstop sprinting, Lula felt comfortable catching her breath. The old sewer system was the only place left in San Fransokyo where Father didn’t have eyes, leastwise artificial ones. For whatever reason, antigrav spelltech fried nearby electronics, hence why Father set up the generators that kept Neo Japan afloat underground.
Lula had hoped the spelltech would unlock the storage cube, but no such luck. The metal box smoked, fragged, but wouldn’t open when she pried at it. Fantastic.
Whatever. There was no better place than the sewers to look for help. Bless the Butcher, the spelltech made them a safe place for black dealings. Theoretically.
Father was smart enough to leave contingencies in place.
Something grumbled and splashed fifty yards ahead of Lula. She ducked down another tunnel and dove beneath the grimy water. Just in time, too. The water tremored as if in a hurricane, and something slid powerfully past, only a stretch of piping away from her.
When at last Lula felt it was safe to break the surface again, rats were screeching their death throes down the darkened way. The stench of blood and sulfur lingered in the musky air.
Yeah, The Underground was a great place for a revolution to organize, if you managed to avoid the otherworldly threats Father left in His wake.
Unfortunately, Lula did not.
---
Bar-Tor was the fastest courier alive. Or, at least, that was how he promoted himself – and it worked! If there was one thing that the megacorps proved, marketing was as powerful as God. Father forgive my blasphemous mind.
Bar-Tor snorted. Good thing he could amuse himself. And entertain himself too. Helped make the runs go by faster. Helped distract him from all the decades-old sludge and shit he ran through. Sewers, man. Who thought they were a good idea? He couldn’t imagine what life was like before vaporwasters.
Hm. What had he been thinking about? Marketing?
Roxie had been an easy sell. Yeah, I ran for Donnie Drago. Pinhead, too. Oh, is it true I can deliver a package faster than a skyrider? That’s the promise, sister. What’s my secret? Eat shit. Literally.
He burst out laughing, and choked on the fecal taste of the air. Hardly lost his breath, though.
Wouldn’t it be crash if there was like a professional racing league? One that paid good coin? He’d win. Not just by being in good shape and quick on his feet. He’d win ‘cause he was the smartest kid alive. Shortcuts, shitty or not, got the job done. Could he be kicked out of a race for cheating? Not if they never caught him.
That was the real secret. Don’t let the monsters catch you. Why more people didn’t use the sewers, he’d never understand. Ooh, big scary interdimensional monsters. Whatever, man.
By Father’s Feces, he’d impress Roxie Santana. Maybe get her SPIRITkey and DM her. Sure, she was like twice his age at thirty…what? Thirty-nine? Thirty-ten? Age was just a number. Mind over matter.
What was he thinking about again? Marketing. Work. One day he’d get Rising Spirit or Hyota to take him on. Someone legit. Or, at least, more legit than criminal gangs like Los Diablos. For sure, this street rat was on the up-and-up.
He smelled blood and sulfur. About time. Hadn’t encountered a monster all day. What was up with that? Were they clearing out? Something eating them up? Bar-Tor tightened his backpack –Roxie’s storage cube packed inside – and ducked into…
Scream. A girl’s scream. Not fair. So not fair.
He had a weakness for women. And pretty folk of other genders. Pretty rocks, too. Not many pretty rocks these days.
The girl! Bar-Tor’s feet moved of their own volition. He raced down the sewage tunnel, and what he saw when he turned the corner made his stomach drop.
“This is so on mode,” he grumbled.
A great big centipede-looking mofo was chasing a girl right toward him. And she was pretty. Pink-and-blue hair. A tattoo of a flower on her neck. Black leather outfit. Very crash. He liked punk girls.
Live ones, especially.
What had he been thinking about, again? How utterly stupid I am?
---
“Skies bleed red and realities get dead.”
Mako was used to Roger’s ramblings, ominous as they were. At this point, all the nurses brushed them off. In fact, they argued over who got to tend to him, and not just for the entertainment value of their conversations with him.
“Runners fall when the treadmill stalls.”
Roger was a nice enough man, and not large enough to be threatening. Pale from too little sun, lanky, and with frizzy brown hair, he might have been cute in a geeky sort of way if they didn’t have to care for him. Father save him, he couldn’t even feed himself. Mako’s scrubs were still stained from the apple sauce he’d tried and failed to offer Roger.
But it was fine. Just part of the job. Roger was much easier to handle than most of their patients at RHEC.
“Doom means end means zoom means time bends.”
The Ravenview Hospital for Extraordinary Cases dealt with all kinds of difficult patients: Legionnaires with PTSD, gaijin expats in need of reconditioning, or, worst of all, the metas and mutants. Freaks of nature who had to wear power dampener collars to keep them from blowing Ravenview to hell. Thank Father they sterilized those bastards.
“And thank you for being so easy,” Mako whispered to Roger as he organized his pill case.
As if to spite Mako, Roger screamed. An animalistic noise unlike anything he’d heard from the man before.
“Shit,” Mako muttered, right as Roger started to thrash against his restraints, yelling, “NO! GO AWAY! GO AWAAAYYY!! You shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t—”
Mako strapped a gag on him, but Roger continued to scream into it. “Shh, buddy. You see me three days a week. You know me.”
Roger looked past him. He’d always been looking past him. At…?
Outside Roger’s room, a new patient was strapped to a hospital bed, awaiting her orderly to finish some paperwork. The patient was probably in her thirties, Korean-Japanese by the looks of her. Petite, not overly fit. And calm, too. Not even drugged.
Curiosity got the best of Mako. After he tranquilized Roger, he went out and checked the new patient’s tag. Her name didn’t ring any bells. Certainly wasn’t in Roger Hayden’s file.
Why on Earth was he frightened of Gehenna Hewitt?
---
Rai materialized into the throne room, his nanites reassembling from the SPIRITline, one strand of the greater SPIRITnet. He ignored the feverish chill that passed over him, a consequence of the near-lightspeed transportation. It was old hat now.
The panel upon which he emerged hummed and dimmed when the process was completed. An electrostatic taste lingered in the air, a byproduct of the technological wonder.
He was alone in the expanse of the blue-lit room. Alone save for the kaiju-sized vibranium throne at the end of it. A web of SPIRITlines colored the metal, and came alive with a neon glow when Father emerged upon it. As an artificial intelligence, this hologram was the closest thing He had to a corporeal form. His size befit the seat.
Rai genuflected before his maker. “I failed, Father, and apologize most sincerely for it.”
“Your apology is inconsequential. I require actions, not words, my son. The Imperial Republic verges on catastrophe.” The robotic voice boomed around him, flecked with hints of its Eastern origin.
“What would you have me do?” Rai asked.
“Scour the SPIRITnet. Employ our spies. Do whatever it takes to find the girl,” said Father. “She was last seen entering the Underground. If she is not already dead, terminate her, then her compatriots as well. I cannot allow their treason to go unpunished any longer.”
“Of course.”
“I have locked down San Fransokyo and ordered the Generals to return. They will assist you in your hunt, but keep your eyes and ears open, my son. I suspect a traitor is among them. That is the only way the ants could have discovered my Weapon.”
“Of course. And regarding The Weapon…?”
“You understand its import. Without it, the next phase of Japan’s expansion will be stalled. Without it, I may be forced to seek…to develop…new children. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father,” said Rai. “I will not fail you again.”
“Then go, my son. My Rai. Fulfill your purpose as Father’s knife in the dark.” The gargantuan hologram leaned forward, its cloak shimmering over the throne, so realistic in appearance, so discomfiting for it. The metal face of God sent a shiver down Rai’s nanite spine as He hissed: “The White Blade of Doom.”
>/filename Father<
>…<
>Father (first appearance: [[REDACTED]]) is the Supreme Leader of the Imperial Republic of Japan and the Chief Executive Officer of Rising Spirit Enterprises (f. 2074).
Father founded The Legion with General RJ Brande (2099).
Father organized The SPIRITnet (2101), constructed San Fransokyo (formerly known as San Francisco) (2101), and annexed Neo Japan (formerly known as California) after [[REDACTED]]…<
>Password encrypted<
>…<
>…incorrect password…<
>…<
>Files locked<
>Admin privileges revoked<
>MESSAGE: Please wait. A Legionbot will arrive shortly.
Failure to comply will result in your arrest (Article 21.A5 of the Neo Japan Accords).<
Rai 2121
Chapter 1: Welcome to San Fransokyo
By Al David
If earlier that night, Lula Lee had known she was sentencing her friends to die…she wouldn’t have done anything differently. The mission was all that mattered.
The war depended upon their success.
That’s what she told herself, anyway, as she hid in a janitor’s closet with The Weapon, her heart hammering over the sounds of battle. A blinking red light on the storage cube’s surface reminded her of her impotence. She thought she could open it, use The Weapon – their goal, their MacGuffin, a weapon constructed by Father to end the war. With it, she could save them all and kill Father, but the cube was encrypted. She didn’t have the SPIRITkey to access it.
She just had to hide while The Legion murdered her favorite people in the world.
It was fine. Totally fine. This was the plan. They knew what they were getting into when they raided Rising Spirit HQ. They had their roles. It didn’t matter if Lula was armed with a doomshot. Didn’t matter that Wasabi had trained her. She was a thief. The rest of her team, they were the real rebels. Soldiers.
A peek outside and she flinched against the green flash of doomrounds. Dozens of gilded Legionbots soared about like supers from the Age of Heroes. C’mon, Go Go… she thought. Where’s that opening?
Lula felt the heat from the bot’s thrusters before she saw it. The Legionbot dropped in front of the closet, smoke fuming out of its blacksteel boots. It almost looked like Iron Man, what for its knight-like features and gilded plate. But this steel fucker didn’t have an arc reactor heart; it didn’t have a heart at all.
“Citizen Lula Lee,” it announced, scanning her with its dead green eyes. “Surrender. Or be terminated.”
“Eat my ass.” Lula raised her doomshot, but the Legionbot was a faster draw. Its blaster-hand aimed automatically and singed her hand. She dropped the pistol.
“Final warning,” said the Legionbot.
VRAROOM! Lights out. Literally. The whole first floor of Rising Spire went dark. The Legionbot slumped, deactivated. Lula could hear others crash to the ground outside.
A lithe hand shoved the bot over. Go Go Tomago grimaced, very much the worse for wear. Her left eye was clouded with blood. Blaster fluid and sweat wet her hair in messy black clumps. But even exhausted, even with her golden hyperskater depowered and weighing her down, she looked like a superhero. Butcher bless her.
“Give me the doomshot,” Go Go said.
Lula shook her head. “You should take the cube and run.”
“We don’t have time to argue. The EMP won’t last long…”
It was their hail mary, and indeed, the Legionbots were already rebooting. They had seconds, a minute at best.
“You’re faster,” Lula insisted.
“You’re the symbol, Lula.” Go Go pulled her to her feet. “I’m just a soldier.”
“Not to me.”
Go Go smiled, and for half a second Lula’s world lit up. Then, she turned and called, “Fred, it’s time.”
“I know.” Fred was leaning over a blonde woman on the floor. Even from afar, Lula could see the smoldering black hole in Honey Lemon’s head. Tears fled freely down Fred’s cheeks as removed the glowing gammapill from his fannypack. He looked up, murder in his eyes. “Run, Lula. Don’t argue. Just run.”
“We got you,” said Wasabi. He was stuck in place, his depowered mechsuit too heavy to move. It whirred, reactivating in tandem with the Legionbots. Wasabi made it from stolen Legion tech, so she knew he meant it when he said, “You got thirty seconds, now twenty-nine, so get going.”
Lula bit her lip. She hated it -- HATED it -- but she nodded. “I love you guys.”
“We love you too, kid,” Go Go replied right as Fred said, “I know.”
“Butcher’s balls!” Fred cried. “That was my moment! My big Han Solo— AHH, fuck you!”
“Fred!” Wasabi warned.
“Relax. I’m taking it.”
And Lula was already running, the storage cube curled in her arm like a football. As she threw the sliding glass doors open, she heard Fred groan, then scream. He didn’t deserve to suffer like this. No one did. But he volunteered to take the gammapill, their last resort. It was his sacrifice to make. “After all,” he’d say, “my pops invented it.”
A bestial roar sounded behind her as she ran into a crowd of panicked civilians. Some brave few filmed Fred’s transformation with their QPhones. The air came alive with the cry of Legionbots.
Then a static smell like a thundercloud filled her nostrils.
KRACKOOOM! The walls of Rising Spire exploded. Lula used the storage cube for cover as glass rained down. No. No, fuck no, the generals weren’t supposed to show. They were in Genten for the megacorp summit. They couldn’t be fast enough—
Terrified civilians shoved at one another in the crowded San Fransokyo street in a desperate bid to flee as the Godzilla-creature that had once been Fred collapsed through the Rising Spire.
Lula froze, mouth agape. A white shadow fell with Fredzilla, its blade in his neck.
He’s real. Butcher slay me, he’s actually real.
The assassin rose atop the toppled, monstrous corpse, unshaken by the radioactive blood that covered his snow-white skin. A rising sun, crimson and proud, glistened upon his naked chest. Blank white eyes stared out from beneath his midnight headpiece, and found Lula. With one smooth stroke, the Ghost of Neo Japan tore his sword from his victim’s neck.
I’m dead. We’re all dead.
Rai had arrived.
---
One of the unfortunate things about life is it’s defined by moments, and we rarely know which ones until after they’ve passed. If Fred knew that drunkenly hooking up with Go Go would’ve soured his relationship with Honey Lemon forever, he wouldn’t have done it. But he did, and their relationship went nowhere, and he lost himself to anipulp and booze. The revolution took over their lives, Honey Lemon died, and now he was dying. Game over.
His life was full of similar fuckery. Opportunities wasted because he couldn’t see ‘em coming. Sometimes life gives you Honey Lemons and you throw them away because you’re an anxious asshole who can’t talk about his feelings.
Most turning points and character-defining acts have no build-up, no dramatic tension with which to predict the gamechanger, to plan the best course of action. So when one presents itself, as grand and predictable as the Death Star’s destruction, you gotta love it. Gotta make the most of it. No excuses.
So he volunteered for the mission. He took dad’s gammapill. He fought even after his best friends died around him. And now, with Rai’s back turned to him, he could save the day.
He could save Lula, that stupid sweet girl.
No fuckery this time. His lungs wheezed as gamma-green blood clogged them. He couldn’t focus all that well. He was dying, but that was no excuse.
Muscles screaming, he whipped his great green claw out, and knocked Rai to kingdom come.
He wanted to tell Lula to run, wanted to tell her not to waste her life like he had, to not waste this Death Star moment. But his lungs were a radioactive swamp, and he couldn’t hold his eyes open any longer, and the darkness took him.
Did I make Honey Lemon proud?
---
Lula pinched her nose against the rancid air and dropped into the pothole. She waded through the muck, The Weapon tight in her grip, going. Not thinking, just going. She couldn’t think about…about…
Tears stung her eyes. She wiped them away, and kept going.
Thank you, Fred. You hit a homerun. Rai got knocked a thousand feet in the air. He was dead. Probably. Probably…not. Just run!
After a few minutes of nonstop sprinting, Lula felt comfortable catching her breath. The old sewer system was the only place left in San Fransokyo where Father didn’t have eyes, leastwise artificial ones. For whatever reason, antigrav spelltech fried nearby electronics, hence why Father set up the generators that kept Neo Japan afloat underground.
Lula had hoped the spelltech would unlock the storage cube, but no such luck. The metal box smoked, fragged, but wouldn’t open when she pried at it. Fantastic.
Whatever. There was no better place than the sewers to look for help. Bless the Butcher, the spelltech made them a safe place for black dealings. Theoretically.
Father was smart enough to leave contingencies in place.
Something grumbled and splashed fifty yards ahead of Lula. She ducked down another tunnel and dove beneath the grimy water. Just in time, too. The water tremored as if in a hurricane, and something slid powerfully past, only a stretch of piping away from her.
When at last Lula felt it was safe to break the surface again, rats were screeching their death throes down the darkened way. The stench of blood and sulfur lingered in the musky air.
Yeah, The Underground was a great place for a revolution to organize, if you managed to avoid the otherworldly threats Father left in His wake.
Unfortunately, Lula did not.
---
Bar-Tor was the fastest courier alive. Or, at least, that was how he promoted himself – and it worked! If there was one thing that the megacorps proved, marketing was as powerful as God. Father forgive my blasphemous mind.
Bar-Tor snorted. Good thing he could amuse himself. And entertain himself too. Helped make the runs go by faster. Helped distract him from all the decades-old sludge and shit he ran through. Sewers, man. Who thought they were a good idea? He couldn’t imagine what life was like before vaporwasters.
Hm. What had he been thinking about? Marketing?
Roxie had been an easy sell. Yeah, I ran for Donnie Drago. Pinhead, too. Oh, is it true I can deliver a package faster than a skyrider? That’s the promise, sister. What’s my secret? Eat shit. Literally.
He burst out laughing, and choked on the fecal taste of the air. Hardly lost his breath, though.
Wouldn’t it be crash if there was like a professional racing league? One that paid good coin? He’d win. Not just by being in good shape and quick on his feet. He’d win ‘cause he was the smartest kid alive. Shortcuts, shitty or not, got the job done. Could he be kicked out of a race for cheating? Not if they never caught him.
That was the real secret. Don’t let the monsters catch you. Why more people didn’t use the sewers, he’d never understand. Ooh, big scary interdimensional monsters. Whatever, man.
By Father’s Feces, he’d impress Roxie Santana. Maybe get her SPIRITkey and DM her. Sure, she was like twice his age at thirty…what? Thirty-nine? Thirty-ten? Age was just a number. Mind over matter.
What was he thinking about again? Marketing. Work. One day he’d get Rising Spirit or Hyota to take him on. Someone legit. Or, at least, more legit than criminal gangs like Los Diablos. For sure, this street rat was on the up-and-up.
He smelled blood and sulfur. About time. Hadn’t encountered a monster all day. What was up with that? Were they clearing out? Something eating them up? Bar-Tor tightened his backpack –Roxie’s storage cube packed inside – and ducked into…
Scream. A girl’s scream. Not fair. So not fair.
He had a weakness for women. And pretty folk of other genders. Pretty rocks, too. Not many pretty rocks these days.
The girl! Bar-Tor’s feet moved of their own volition. He raced down the sewage tunnel, and what he saw when he turned the corner made his stomach drop.
“This is so on mode,” he grumbled.
A great big centipede-looking mofo was chasing a girl right toward him. And she was pretty. Pink-and-blue hair. A tattoo of a flower on her neck. Black leather outfit. Very crash. He liked punk girls.
Live ones, especially.
What had he been thinking about, again? How utterly stupid I am?
---
“Skies bleed red and realities get dead.”
Mako was used to Roger’s ramblings, ominous as they were. At this point, all the nurses brushed them off. In fact, they argued over who got to tend to him, and not just for the entertainment value of their conversations with him.
“Runners fall when the treadmill stalls.”
Roger was a nice enough man, and not large enough to be threatening. Pale from too little sun, lanky, and with frizzy brown hair, he might have been cute in a geeky sort of way if they didn’t have to care for him. Father save him, he couldn’t even feed himself. Mako’s scrubs were still stained from the apple sauce he’d tried and failed to offer Roger.
But it was fine. Just part of the job. Roger was much easier to handle than most of their patients at RHEC.
“Doom means end means zoom means time bends.”
The Ravenview Hospital for Extraordinary Cases dealt with all kinds of difficult patients: Legionnaires with PTSD, gaijin expats in need of reconditioning, or, worst of all, the metas and mutants. Freaks of nature who had to wear power dampener collars to keep them from blowing Ravenview to hell. Thank Father they sterilized those bastards.
“And thank you for being so easy,” Mako whispered to Roger as he organized his pill case.
As if to spite Mako, Roger screamed. An animalistic noise unlike anything he’d heard from the man before.
“Shit,” Mako muttered, right as Roger started to thrash against his restraints, yelling, “NO! GO AWAY! GO AWAAAYYY!! You shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t—”
Mako strapped a gag on him, but Roger continued to scream into it. “Shh, buddy. You see me three days a week. You know me.”
Roger looked past him. He’d always been looking past him. At…?
Outside Roger’s room, a new patient was strapped to a hospital bed, awaiting her orderly to finish some paperwork. The patient was probably in her thirties, Korean-Japanese by the looks of her. Petite, not overly fit. And calm, too. Not even drugged.
Curiosity got the best of Mako. After he tranquilized Roger, he went out and checked the new patient’s tag. Her name didn’t ring any bells. Certainly wasn’t in Roger Hayden’s file.
Why on Earth was he frightened of Gehenna Hewitt?
---
Rai materialized into the throne room, his nanites reassembling from the SPIRITline, one strand of the greater SPIRITnet. He ignored the feverish chill that passed over him, a consequence of the near-lightspeed transportation. It was old hat now.
The panel upon which he emerged hummed and dimmed when the process was completed. An electrostatic taste lingered in the air, a byproduct of the technological wonder.
He was alone in the expanse of the blue-lit room. Alone save for the kaiju-sized vibranium throne at the end of it. A web of SPIRITlines colored the metal, and came alive with a neon glow when Father emerged upon it. As an artificial intelligence, this hologram was the closest thing He had to a corporeal form. His size befit the seat.
Rai genuflected before his maker. “I failed, Father, and apologize most sincerely for it.”
“Your apology is inconsequential. I require actions, not words, my son. The Imperial Republic verges on catastrophe.” The robotic voice boomed around him, flecked with hints of its Eastern origin.
“What would you have me do?” Rai asked.
“Scour the SPIRITnet. Employ our spies. Do whatever it takes to find the girl,” said Father. “She was last seen entering the Underground. If she is not already dead, terminate her, then her compatriots as well. I cannot allow their treason to go unpunished any longer.”
“Of course.”
“I have locked down San Fransokyo and ordered the Generals to return. They will assist you in your hunt, but keep your eyes and ears open, my son. I suspect a traitor is among them. That is the only way the ants could have discovered my Weapon.”
“Of course. And regarding The Weapon…?”
“You understand its import. Without it, the next phase of Japan’s expansion will be stalled. Without it, I may be forced to seek…to develop…new children. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father,” said Rai. “I will not fail you again.”
“Then go, my son. My Rai. Fulfill your purpose as Father’s knife in the dark.” The gargantuan hologram leaned forward, its cloak shimmering over the throne, so realistic in appearance, so discomfiting for it. The metal face of God sent a shiver down Rai’s nanite spine as He hissed: “The White Blade of Doom.”