Gargoyles: AD Police File 2

by Bubblicious (felching_wang@hotmail.com)



Disclaimer: Some of the characters/concepts here are Disney's, some are AnimeIgo's, some are ADV Films', some are White Wolf Entertainment's, and some are mine. I'm not even going to try to separate them all, and bore you poor readers to death. Enjoy.



Preface: Welcome back. Same drill as before. Uh...enjoy.



***

"Aw, come on. It's too early in the morning to have a riot."

ADP Detective Leon McNichols

Bubblegum Crisis: "Blow Up"



"Let me get this straight, Scratch. Big red thinks...what? That the rogues aren't going rogue at all? That they're evolving?"

Elektra Dracon

Gargoyles: AD Police File 1, Chapter 1

***



From the journal of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka:

"In 1997, the world was shaken to its core by the discovery of another sentient terrestrial species, known as gargoyles. It called into question everything we'd ever taken to know as fact; everything from theological propositions to historical texts. The church decried them as spawns of Satan, while historical and even proposed Biblical documents heralded them as guardians and angels. Eventually, they were accepted, most of all in New York city, where they're just another tourist attraction.

"In 2027, it was rocked again by the excavation at Atlantis. Long held to be just another convenient myth, the rubble of the great ocean-city of Atlantis made us reexamine how we came to be here. Archeologists claimed that it explained a great many historical oddities, such as the great pyramids of Egypt and the similar Mayan temples. And, with the unearthing of Atlantis, the Black Forest of Germany suddenly came alive again. While still not much more than urban legends, people who have ventured into the forest have claimed to see everything from werewolves to demons. Across the globe, the same things happened. UFO incidents skyrocketed, as did reported tales of the bizarre. Needless to say, the works of H.P. Lovecraft were once again hot commodities.

"Again, in 2028, the advent of voomers raised a new series of questions. Theologians claimed that megacorporations financing voomers were working against God's will, even though they supplied a relatively cheap, inexhaustible supply of gross manual labor. Civil rights activists called it slavery, but Tokyo went from a smoldering pile of rubble in 2034 to the MegaTokyo of 2038. In four years, Tokyo was bigger, better, and booming - all thanks to the voomers and their creators.

"And finally, in 2040, the MegaCrash made us reevaluate everything all over again. Every single voomer in MegaTokyo went rogue at approximately the same time, as the Alpha voomer, Galatea Stingray, sic 'the Sotai,' laid waste to the city. Thousands died, but an even worse disaster was averted, when a vigilante group calling themselves the Knight Sabers took Galatea and her hordes down. The religious right pointed to it as a sign from God, the left cried for voomer rights. The UN passed a number of resolutions that looked good and silenced the left, but changed nothing.

"Now, in the year 2044, we're faced with another dilemma. The voomers are still going rogue. But now, they're getting smarter. Galatea Stingray may have been the only sentient voomer in existence so far, but my feeling is that she may have some brothers and sisters fairly soon here.

"I don't know what this means for the future, and I'm not really sure I want to be here when it happens. My partner, Sergeant Alicia Wyvern, the only gargoyle of the 3rd ADP, and I haven't scarcely had a night in the past week where we weren't facing off against some voomer or another. We haven't seen any trace of the raw emotions we saw in the face of that Bronx voomer, not in the recent rogues.

"I'm not quite sure what's going on anymore. I don't even know if I care. The group of HARDsuited mercenaries we've tagged as the 'Vigilantes' has made a series of hit-and-fade attacks against rogue voomers and, much as I hate saying it, they're doing a better job keeping the situation wrapped up than we are. Most everyone in the ADP hates them for it, and I can understand where they're coming from. I feel a bit resentful myself, but Alicia and I are thankful for all the help we can get.

"Because at this point, it's sorely needed."



***



New York

2044



Max Osaka groaned as the tapping came at his window. His head pounded, his muscles ached, and there was an unfamiliar lump in the bed next to him. And the lump was stirring.

The tapping came again, urgent and aggravating as all hell.

"Alright, alright!" Max growled, running a hand back through his hair as he sat up in bed. Beside him, a young woman poked her head out from under the covers. She was a redhead, hair closely cropped, draping over her cheeks in a fairly becoming fashion. Full red lips and a small nose made her beautiful, and her figure made her stunning. Max looked over at her, blinking away the bleariness, as he tried to force last night, morning, and afternoon back into focus. His day off...he'd gone clubbing with some of the guys from the precinct...gotten plastered...oh, right. Candice Hawke. He'd known her back in the 7th grade, and had run into her at a bar. And then they'd gone back to his place, went through his old Godzilla tapes, and had passed out on his bed without bothering to screw.

God bless Heineken.

Another sharp, angry knock at the window.

"Keep your pants on, Al!" Max yelled towards it as Candice sat up in bed next to him, stretching languidly despite the fact that she wasn't wearing anything more than her underwear.

"Who's Al, and why can't he use the door?" She asked, covering her mouth with a hand as she yawned.

Max swung his feet off the side of the bed, snatching up a pair of sweats as he did so. "Al's my partner, and she can't use the door because my neighbors would freak." He pulled on the sweats and stepped over to the window, grumbling as he fumbled with the latch without bothering to brush the curtains aside.

Candice frowned, brushing a hand back over her scalp and scratching dumbly. She shrugged and flopped back down on the bed. "If you say so."

Max didn't bother responding, instead throwing the window open and stepping back to let his partner in.

Sergeant Alicia Wyvern climbed in through the window, tucking her wings in tight to her back as she did so. She straightened and turned to glare at Max, planting her hands on her hips, glowering down at him. "What the hell took you, Osaka? We've gotta be at work in ten minutes, and we've still got that damn list to - "

Max clamped a hand over her mouth and pointed at the bed. Alicia turned her head slightly to look at Candice's dozing form. She turned back to him, frowning deeper. "You never told me you had a thing for redheads, Max. Now get your ass dressed before you get your ass fired."



-

Max didn't much like the Marine Corps or the Merchant Marines. They were loud, obnoxious, overbearing, and dumb as bricks to boot. But they did have a useful vocabulary when it came to people like ADP Captain Rebecca Christmas. The term that fit her best - as a desk-jockey most worried about her pension and thus doing everything possible to piss off the least number of people - was, in Max's estimation, something equivalent to 'cheesedick.'

Or something like that.

"You let them do what?!" Both Max and Alicia roared without any sort of preamble.

"For the love of Pete..." Christmas, referred to as 'Bitchmas' behind her back, made a horizontal chopping motion with her hand, leaning forward in her seat and glowering up at the two officers confronting her. "At least close the damned door if you're going to be insubordinate!"

Alicia slapped her tail against the door, shutting it with a reverberating thud.

"You let them take the 55-S remains! Those bastards at Pentex! Just what the hell were you thinking?!"

Christmas' left eyebrow twitched, just slightly. "I had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. You got that, Detective? It was a decision handed down by the Mayor's office. You reading me, Osaka?"

"But..." Max's own eyes twitched, betraying his mind's natural refusal to believe what he'd just heard.

"One might wonder, Detective..." Christmas interrupted, taking a pen in her fingers and rolling it between them slowly, like a cat playing with her prey. "...why you're so interested in the remains of this particular voomer. Nothing in the reports filed by you or your partner listed anything particularly out of the ordinary about this one..." Her eyes narrowed, and a tight, feral smile appeared on her lips.

Well, shit. Alicia thought sourly. She saw right through us. Brilliant.

Again, Max's brows twitched. He straightened, stuffed his hands in his pockets. "It's nothing, Captain-ma'am." He said, in a way that would've let a deaf retarded child know he was lying through his teeth. "I just...uh...I just don't like civilians dicking around with evidence."

"As if it were your call, Detective." Christmas snarled. "Those civilians 'dicking with evidence,' as you so eloquently put it, are the most qualified people on this planet to see just what made it go rogue. I'll see you get a copy of whatever report they file."

Yeah, right, all three thought at once.

"Now get the hell out of my office."



-

Max went through three cigarettes in just as many minutes, muttering and grumbling to himself as he hunkered down over the wheel, driving at a speed that would have legally been considered reckless. Alicia wasn't much better, picking food out from between her fangs.

"I still say we should've told her." She grumbled. "Hell, we should've included it in the report to begin with."

"Oh, sure. 'Hey, Cap, just so y'know, the booms are getting smart. Yeah, they're after your pension.' Yeah, right. Then we'd have the Army and any number of corporate private armies up in here, and any pretense that we actually do our jobs would go right out the window!" Max stuck his head out the window. "Bye! Bye bye, little pretense! Fly away, precious pretense!"

Alicia elbowed him in the gut, driving her elbow-spur into his side. Max grunted and pulled his head back inside the car. "You've made your point, smart-ass."

"Better'n being a dumb-ass."

"You really want me to hit you, don't you?"

Max shrugged. "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

"Asshole."

Max opened his mouth to reply, realized his reply wouldn't have made any sense, wisely closed it again. Long moments of silence passed while Max continued to drive.

"Where are we going?" Alicia finally asked, growl-muttering.

"First place on the list; some dive called 'Sodom' in the Chinatown ward."



-

Max let Alicia lay her 'thing' down, as she called it, while he stood at the office-window, arms folded across his chest as he looked with quiet disgust below him. He didn't particularly mind raves, nightclubs, or strip bars. Far from it, he actually enjoyed them, when they didn't incite people to do stupid things.

But this place was a travesty of the imagination. Even ravers and acid-heads had their dignity, and this place was an affront to the whole subculture. It was gawdy, arrogant, and obviously designed so that the rich and wealthy could pretend they were associating with the poor old common-folk, while they did nothing of the sort. It was too clean, too well maintained, for that. The customers were 'dressed down' to a degree, but they still had the arrogant stink of wealth about them.

It made Max sick to his stomach.

The owner and his top aides were all oily men in cheap Italian suits, drinking cheaper wine. Alicia, who'd grown up in the relative wealth of the Xanatos family, had smelled the wine before they'd even gotten to the office and had told Max exactly what she thought of the people running this place. Now that they'd met them, Max had to agree.

Michael Strauchs waved a fat-fingered hand through the air lazily. "But of course, Sergeant, we will do whatever we can to help you in your investigation."

Alicia smiled tightly, somehow managing to keep the grimace from her face as the man obviously checked her out. "I'm sure you will, Mr. Strauchs. I believe you have several voomers in your service with these serial numbers." She reached inside her coat, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it on the desk before him. With a pudgy hand, he reached out and handed the paper to one of his aides, who looked it over. "We've reason to believe that these voomers may begin exhibiting Sotai phenomenon symptoms within the next few months. We would like to examine them, if we may."

The look of shock on the man's face almost made Alicia snicker out loud. Chew on that, you fat oil-slick.

He recovered shortly, and he plastered another wide grin on his face. "Of course. Simply give my men a moment to locate them..." Strauchs gave the aide with the paper a not-so-subtle nod. "...and we shall take you to them."

"Thank you." Alicia said, forcing the gentle tone into her voice. Max turned from the window and stepped next to her, sticking his hands in his pocket easily.

Not two minutes passed before the aide returned, clicking off a radio as he came in through a reentered through a side door. He nodded to his boss, exhibiting the same lack of subtlety that his boss had. Mafia, they were not.

"Excellent." Strauchs drooled, pushing back from his desk and raising his massive bulk from the chair. "If you'll please follow my aide, officers, he'll take you to the machines you seek."



-

"...the machines we seek." Max grumbled under his breath, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. "Fat fuckin' gwee -"

Alicia elbowed him in the ribs. "Quiet, you. We've only got one more of these things to look at before we go."

"Yeah, about that. Just what makes you sure the other two were safe?" He whispered back at her, ignoring the sudden soreness in his ribs.

"No initial degradation, no sudden trauma recorded in their CPUs." She shrugged imperceptibly, giving her hair a toss. "Besides, as soon as we leave, they're gonna go over these units with everything they've got and replace the cores anyway. It'll be fine."

"Great. So why don't we just give 'em the list and let them do it?"

"And miss the opportunity to flash around this new shiny toy you guys gave me?" She remarked smartly, thumbing the badge hanging around her neck.

Max just grunted, and followed behind the stiff-necked aide leading them. He led them to a bathroom, where a maintenance voomer was dutifully sweeping up the floor, keeping things clean and fresh for the pompous clientele.

"You there!" The man snapped. The voomer looked up, then straightened, turning to face the group.

"Yes, sir?" It said in an automated voice. "May I help you in some way?"

"Oh, be quiet. We want to take a look at you."

Max's eyes registered the subtlest motions of the voomer's fingers around the mop it wielded. He slowly pulled his hand from his pockets, resting them on his hips, where he had easy access to his gun-belt. Please please please, just let it be my imagination...

"Sir, has my performance been unsatisfactory in some way?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw Alicia's hands disappear behind her back, where he knew she would activate those crazy cyber-gauntlets of hers unseen.

"No, you stupid metal clod, they're with the ADP and they just want to make sure you work! Now switch off already!"

"But...my work..."

"Listen to your owner, you tin-can!" The man strode forward, sniffing angrily as he reached for the voomer's cut-off switch. "I swear, you damn things can be so - gurk!"

The broom-handle came up and around so fast that neither Max nor Alicia saw it coming. The hard end went straight through the man's left eye and came out the back of his head, extending a full bloody meter, soaked in liquid red. "But my work..!"

Alicia crouched and pounced forward, talons extending while her gauntlets pulsed and hummed with destructive power. The corpse fell as Max struggled with his sidearm, pulling the pistol from its holster with, what he felt were, reflexes a deaf, blind and dumb elephant would have. She raked her talons down it's faceplate, shattering one of the glass-like eye-slits. Her mass tackled it to the ground, and they fell, grappling and jockeying for position. Max couldn't draw a bead, and rushing in was a sure-fire way to get himself killed, so he did the only thing he could; he watched like an idiot.

They rolled, slamming into the stalls. Alicia planted a foot on its midsection and heaved, throwing it backwards, flailing. It landed with a heavy metallic clang, shattering and uprooting tile in it's wake. It came to its feet, its single eye gleaming red. Alicia came at it again, fists cocked, knuckle-bombs squealing with energy. The voomer tried to catch her fist, and it did. The explosion took its arm off to the elbow, sending it reeling into the wall again. Alicia brought her fists down on it again and again, each strike punctuated by explosions from her knuckle-bombers. With a final indignant roar that made Max's ears ring, she plunged her fist into it's chest. Metal tore, and her fingers closed around the thing's core. Muscles in her shoulders bunched, and when she ripped her hand free, the core came with it.



-

From the journal of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka:

"Alicia 'slept' at the station this morning. I'm never going to get used to watching that. She just hops up on the side of the building, strikes a pose, sun comes up, and she turns into stone. There's this sort of...cracking-creaking sound, and her entire body just does this whole mighty-morphin'-thing. Xanatos told me that it was some sort of bio-chemical process that affects all gargoyles. He didn't know about half-gargoyle half-whatever creatures, because he's never had the chance to study one.

"Like I said, freaks me out. But not quite as much as watching them wake up. In that split-second after they've shed their skin, bursting from their shells with an animine howl that could shake the dead, you get a glimpse into their real natures. The barely-suppressed animal fury that we city-slickers have been bred to fear out of habit. But, even beyond that, there's something else. The mystical side of them, the unexplained, inexplicable side...that's what truly terrifies me. I pride myself on being able to get a read on most anyone with just a few cursory glances, but this...there's no way I'll ever be able to feel completely secure around any of them. It's when I watch this, that I can understand why groups like the Quarrymen exist.

"But by the same token, I know they'd never hurt me. It's a truly odd, and thoroughly disconcerting, feeling. And, if it weren't for Alicia, I'd be dead now. Watching her in action, seeing that lithe, feline grace and that sheer, wolfish intensity...even if I were in an XE or a HARDsuit, I couldn't keep up with her, or any of her Clan. I both envy and fear them for this. And it makes me angry - if they were still patrolling, doing the thing that Alicia tells me should come naturally to all gargoyles, then it makes me wonder. If they were still on the beat, would Melissa still be alive..?

"I don't know. I feel like I'm at a precipice, looking into the abyss, with Melissa on one side, silently condemning me for letting her die. On the other, Commissioner Maza, telling me to keep her god-daughter from harm. And above, Alicia, symbol of the strength and speed that I'll never have. Symbolic of the guilt I feel for Mel's death.

"And the abyss...the abyss. Is that my death?

"And if it is, then what is God trying to tell me? To fall?"



-

"...trippin' all'a these days, never gonna see the end times..."

"Max, you've been singing the same goddamn line over and over again for the past two hours. Enough already."

"Oh, eat me."

Alicia grinned at him, running her tongue over her fangs playfully.

"On second thought, don't."

Max stopped singing, and concentrated instead on his driving, occasionally casting a glance back over his shoulder before turning his eyes back to the stretch of pavement before him. He noted, with a grim sense of amusement, that they were in the Summerlands.

The Summerlands was a burrow in the southern area of Brooklyn. It was home to a number of society's rejects; so-called hackers and mages, astral strand walkers. 'Demon' sightings were a common occurrence down here, and it was a place that even the most grizzled ADP officers, XE pilots, and SWAT-'pounders hated to tread.

And since Alicia had become his partner, Max wound up in the Summerlands at least once a week.

"Goddamn bureaucracy. Makin' me drive through this witch's hellhole..." He grumbled under his breath, so low that even Alicia's advanced hearing couldn't pick it up.

Nevertheless, Alicia turned towards him and flashed a knowing grin. "Oh, come on, Max. You know that you get off on this kind of ambiance."

Max grunted, slouching down in his acceleration seat just slightly. "Ah, shaddap, Al, and tell me what forensics found on that gweedo's voomer."

"What, you mean the shit-cleaning one?"

"Yeah, that one."

"The one that killed that guy?"

"Yes, Al, that one."

"Oh, so you mean that voomer?"

Scowling, Max turned his head just enough to glower at her. "Al, I realize you're handicapped by a natural immaturity, and I forgive you for it. But so help me, if you don't..."

"It was another Pentex core."

Max stared at her blankly for a good few moments, blinking dumbly, before he realized he was about to drive up onto the sidewalk and start bowling for pedestrians. He righted the car quickly, muttering to himself. "Wanna try that again, Al?"

Alicia shrugged, leaning her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes, letting her arm hang slightly out of the window. "It was a Starling L-75 waste disposal model. It was, however, fitted with a core of Pentex model and manufacture, which may explain why it went rogue. However, Forensics is dragging its ass." She grunted disdainfully. "They haven't found enough rogue core material in that thing to fill a cubic centimeter."

Max shook his head, sighing. "It figures. Nothing makes any damned sense anymore. So what the hell was it? Another two-gee acting like a neurotic third generation?"

Alicia's mouth split into a fang-filled snarl. "If it was, then that makes Pentex two-for-two." Her left eye opened lazily, stared at him for a moment, then closed again. "Just how long are we going to suppress knowledge of this, Max?"

"And just what the hell are we suppressing, Al? All we know at this point is that we continually run into voomers who like to talk. And kill. That's fine with me. I say let 'em talk. When it comes to killing...well, yeah, I guess we gotta do somethin' about that, but..."

"Damnit, Max!" Alicia snapped, her face twisting into a snarl, though her eyes remained closed. "Something's going on, and we still haven't done a fucking thing with that list!"

"Yes we have!" Max shouted back, his grip on the wheel tightening 'till his knuckles went white. "We went after that voomer at Sodom, and we nearly got our asses ripped off! Just what in the hell would you have me do, huh?!"

She didn't respond, though the swirl of her hair about her shoulders told him that she was looking out the window. Seconds stretched into minutes as they continued patrolling. Max radioed in once. As he clicked off the radio, she finally spoke again.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Max, but you've sat on this thing for two days. You've convinced me to falsify two reports to our superiors, and you've had me lie to my Clan. And I can't figure out why, save for one reason."

Max didn't bother responding.

"You don't want to stop them, do you?" Alicia's head came around, and her gaze locked on his face. "I'm giving you two days to pull off...whatever it is you're trying to pull off here. After that, I'm giving the list to Elisa and Alex."



-

"I have just received word from the CI department." Richard Starling said evenly, his hands bridged over the lower half of his face, lending an air of hawkish superiority to his already impressive demeanor. "Operations Director Katsuragi tells me again that they have been unable to obtain the identities of the hackers who downloaded our Purple files."

Lucinda filed away the various names, instantly recalling what they were and what they signified; the CI, or counter-intelligence, department was responsible for warding off hackers, deckers, slicers, and other corporate espionage activists. The Purple files were Starling's sic-name for the files that he kept, tracking all the voomers with defects that could lead to the possibility of rogue occurrences. It also referred to a number of certain other projects that Lucinda knew could destroy not only Starling, but everyone who worked for him as well.

She crossed her arms over her chest, tossing her black-on-white hair with a cocky shake of her head. "Keller's no help, either. Research continues to...well. It seems all they can do is complain. And, of course, the children..."

"Oh, yes." Starling's face soured noticably. "The children. Quite the little Sothoth's, aren't they?"

"Cthulhu's own spawn, Rick." Her lips curled. "But, then, the Weaver and those damned pet-children of hers can't be allowed to..."

"Yes, I know. And I'm well aware of the price I paid Oberon for them and their mother, as well. But you've gotten me off topic, my darling Lucy-lou. Katsuragi has allowed our mainframe security to slacken. As a result, a group of terrorists has made off with a highly sensitive document that could seriously damage this company's reputability."

"Which one, sir?"

"The list, of course. The other one is of...minor importance."

She blinked, stumbling backwards a pace as if struck. "Sir..?"

"Relax, Lucinda. If word of that project gets out, no one will possibly believe it. It would appear to be just a poorly-hatched smear campaign designed by my enemies."

"I...see, sir." She frowned, then shrugged. "It's your call, of course."

"That's right, it is." Starling's eyes narrowed to slits. "And Katsuragi has apparently forgotten this. I want you to explain to her the error of her ways. Take control of the investigation. I'll supervise the children until you can track these hackers back to their lair. Destroy them, and anyone who's seen that list."

"And if they've given it to the police..?"

"We'll deal with that if and when it comes up."

"And Katsuragi..?"

Starling's eyes slackened just slightly, though the hard gleam never left. "You know how I hate to waste my resources, but if she can't be salvaged..." He shook his head, leaning back in his chair. "Deal with it. I want this matter resolved."



-

They were almost out of the Summerlands when it happened.

Max and Alicia had been chatting, going back and forth in their typical wise-assed banter, laughing and joking. Max had even let her drive, though she didn't have the same experience behind the wheel he did.

It was when they passed by an old, beat-up building that looked like it was ready to fall apart - much like every other building in the Summerlands, though it was all deceptive - that the whole thing went to hell.

One minute, they were just cruising along, chatting away and keeping a look-out for the non-existent crime in that portion of the city; the next, they were embroiled in the middle of an unnatural civil war among beasts and monsters.

Some were hideous creatures; humans, or what had once been, that now shambled along gracelessly, swinging forearms as large around as a construction-voomer's leg. Open sores oozed thick yellow pus, misshapen faces twisted into barely-recognizable masks of rage.

The rest were, Max wouldn't find out until later, werewolves. They fought and cut at each other with tooth, blade and claw. Most had finely-trimmed and tuned pelts of black and brown, and carried themselves with a self-assured air that signaled them as professionals. The others...were hideous, shambling, and infinitely deadly. They wove in and out of the clean-pelts, glowing green and red eyes and hideous, boiling tattoos that luminesced in disgusting neon colors.

The first indication that something was wrong was when the vivisected corpse of one of the clean-pelts - a mammoth creature, whose impact cratered the whole front end of the car, sending it into a spin - landed with a deafening crunch of metal, bone and sinew on the hood. Alicia swore, slamming her foot on the brakes and trying to regain control while Max grabbed desperately for what was affectionately called the 'oh-shit-handle' attached to the dashboard.

Her efforts merely made the spin worse, and slammed the cruiser through the wall of the nearest building. The entire wall came down, as rats and squatters alike went scrambling for cover as mortar and flotsam came raining down upon them.

"Sonuvabitch!" Max swore viciously, shrugging out of his seatbelt and looking over to Alicia. She groaned, holding a hand to her head.

"I'm fine..." She groaned, though blood streamed down between her fingers, circling down around her wrist. "What the hell hit us..?"

"I don't know." Max growled, throwing open his door, stepping out, and drawing his sidearm in three fluid movements. Alicia stepped out of the driver's side, brandishing a Lancer-Arms Mk. 3 heavy assault rifle. Max whistled appreciatively. "About damned time."

"Yeah, yea - oh, God." The gun fell from Alicia's fingers, and her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes widening in stark horror. She stared at the corpse on the hood of the car, shaking her head slowly. "Oh, God...June..."

Max's brow knit, and his frown deepened. "Al? Yo, Al, what the hell is this thing?" No answer. "Hey, Al!" Nothing. "Damnit, Al, look at - Holy Christ!"

One of the metahuman creatures staggered into the hole the cruiser had made, irregular and broken fangs dripping with mucous and saliva. And blood. Misshapen claws ran red with the vitals of another creature.

Max stared, dumbfounded, at the sorry creature, his eyes wide; his pupils dilated in abject terror. His mouth opened and closed as he searched for any word, any obscenity, to hurl at the thing. He totally forgot about the handgun in his hands as the thing approached. A cruel, gnarled hand, dripping from open sores, reached for him. It moved fast, but, somehow...Max saw it moving in slow motion.

Something in the back of his mind snapped. He hop-stepped to the side as his self-defense training came back to him. His foot snapped up and around, catching the creature across the jaw. Its head snapped back, and it let loose an inhuman howl as it staggered. Max's foot touched the pavement again, launching him into a hurricane-kick that put the creature flat on it's back. Max's feet again came into contact with the ground, dropping him into a crouch as he snapped the gun in his hands into firing position again. He squeezed the trigger twice, spraying blood and a thick, black, vomitous substance all over everything behind the creature.

It died shrieking.

As for Max...the world around him slowed down. As the dust settled, he could make out the individual grains; could even count them. He felt faster, he knew he was faster.

Death surrounded him. The scent of it filled his nostrils; the acrid metal-liquid stench of blood. The sight of it was all around; disfigured and vivisected corpses, some with fur, most with pallid white skin. The sound of it; the cries of the damned, the howls of the wolves...

And Alicia's own tortured screams.

She came into the fight mere seconds after Max, tears streaming from eyes glowing blood red. Her gauntlets remained dormant; she waded in with tooth and talon, but Max could see every move she made. She moved faster than he should have been able to track, moving in and out of the creatures and their bestial overlords, her talons drawing blood wherever they went.

But Max was still faster.

Even as one of the wolves, its crooked teeth reeking of death, came at him, swinging with claws meant to rend flesh down to the bone, powered on by muscles that could have ripped limbs clean off, Max moved. It slashed high, he evaded. It kicked low, he jumped. His foot snapped up and around with enough force to send the wolf rocking.

Max's feet hit the ground, and he tossed the gun away. He wouldn't need it.

The world moved; the whirlwind of death continued.

Max stepped away from the next clumsy attack, the already enraged beast going further insane. His fist rocketed upwards, slamming into its solar plexus. With a surprised grunt, it fell like a pile of bricks, inertia dumping it into an unceremonious heap behind him, whimpering pitifully.

When Max's foot came down again, the wolf's throat snapped.

Two more of the human-like creatures came at Max, shrieking and screaming from gaping maws that had once been mouths. Shock-white hair whipped behind them as they moved at speeds the average human eye would be hard-pressed to track. Max flipped gracefully over them, reacting on instincts he didn't know he had. The creatures stumbled, confused and disoriented. Max came up behind the creature on his left, grabbing it by the jaw and the back of the head. It shrieked in pain and protest one minute; its neck snapped the next.

The creature's partner whirled as Max dropped the now-lifeless thing from his grip. It stepped back apace, huge, carapace-like eyes swiveling around in their sockets. Max's mouth slowly split into a grin as he eased himself back into a defensive stance.

The creature came at him, arms swinging clumsily like clubs. Max caught one, flipped the thing easily onto its back. His hand knifed in at the thing's throat, crushing the Adam's apple back into the spinal column.

Max stood, whirled to face the next attacker, adrenaline coursing through him.

But, it was all over. Alicia crouched near the corpse of a human-creature, her talons still wrapped around its throat, her eyes wild and insane as she continued squeezing. The clean-pelts howled in triumph, pumping their fists into the air.

And time commenced its normal run.



-

"Interesting. Very interesting."

"Yes. The first child has begun his maturation. We recalled Kali at precisely the right time, it seems."

"So the old crone prophesied correctly for once. Now we just see about the other two, and perhaps..."

"Thank you, son. I'm well aware of what happens if we fail here."



-



"His name was June-Moon-Rising. He was a member of the Puking Rats tribe."

Alicia's cheeks were sallow, tear-streaks marred her face. Her hair hung around her face loosely, and she looked so pitiable that Max wanted to cry. It was like all the vitality had been sucked out of her.

"The Rats moved into the Summerlands shortly after my Clan stopped..." Her voice cracked. She paused for a moment, then started again. "June was the only man I ever loved. The only man I ever...became one with. He was there for me after my father died. He was the first person who seemed...real.

"He was a werewolf. They're like gargoyles; they protect the humans and wolves they spawn with. Their kinfolk protect them." A slight, emotionless smile split her lips slightly. "Just like the humans and gargoyles of old."

Max nodded. It made sense, and if Alicia said it was so, then, well...he just had to trust her.

"I was...Alex's envoy to them. He knew the tribe's elders would respond to a gargoyle emissary better than they would to a human they didn't know. I was their go-between for awhile, running guns, armor, and supplies to the Rats, helping them establish a covert presence in the Summerlands. During that time, June and I got to know each other. We even went on patrol together a few times. He was the one who...who..." She trailed off, her voice ending in a choked sob. Her head sagged down to her knees, her hair cascading around her shoulders and framing her face as she shed her tears.

Max rolled his glass between his fingers, staring into and through it, and the whiskey within. "He was your first, wasn't he?"

"My only."

The response didn't surprise Max. Nothing this day did, though he knew it should have. He tried to examine just why that was, but for some reason, his mind had formed a sort of barrier over that part of his psyche. It didn't surprise him, but it...frustrated him. A great deal.

"The Puking Rats have been here since the late '30s, then."

Alicia nodded, brushing tears from her eyes and slouching lower against the couch. "Yes...they have..."

"Why?"

She sniffed, cocking her head slightly as she turned to look at him. "What...what do you mean..?"

"The Rats must have come for a reason. They didn't show up just because your Clan retired. There had to be another reason. What is it?"

Alicia stared at him for a long time, her eyes and face - tear-stained and haggard - took on the look of a creature whose fight-or-flight response had just kicked in. She turned her eyes away from him, looked at the Shin Seikei Evangelion poster Max had hanging outside the kitchen.

After long moments, she spoke. "The Christians believe in two primal forces dueling for supremacy. To an extent, this is correct, though not wholly so. The Muslims and Jews believe in the same. The Wicca and their ilk as well, though not to such extremes." She inhaled, closing her eyes, as her face and posture shed tension like a second skin. "The garou - the werewolf society - follow more the path of the Greek and the Babylonians; they believe in the universe's triumvirate. They call it the Triat.

"It is composed of the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm. The Wyld is the universe's creator; it creates life, dances and plays with it. The Weaver shapes. She is the one responsible for giving life its many forms, and she is the one who nurtures the need of every sentient to have things make sense. The Wyrm...is the great destroyer. Satan, Shiva, Ares, Ctha-lu. Maybe even the creature called Leviathan. He was responsible for seeing that the order was maintained, that life was transitory.

"Weaver became jealous of Wyld; she could shape, but she could never create. She wanted to create. Her servants worried and fretted, but did nothing. Weaver came to watch the Wyrm at work. She watched as he did his job, devouring the things she'd slaved to shape. For millennia, she watched while the Wyld effortlessly created and cavorted, making things that she had to shape and give form. She did it tirelessly, but by the same token, she resented it. He constantly defied her sense of order. As did the Wyrm.

"So she captured the Wyrm. She spun him into her webs and trapped him. She tried also to capture the Wyld, but he escaped her clutches and went into hiding, such as Zeus hid from Hera. Millennia passed, and the Wyrm went insane.

"Finally, a servant of the Weaver, a creature called Ananasa, rose against her progenitor and tried to free the Wyrm. She failed, but the Weaver's hold on the Wyrm weakened. Suddenly, the servants of the Wyrm were reawakened. They, like their master, went mad. They rushed forth in droves of thousands of millions, slaughtering and destroying. The natural order had been destroyed.

"The garou fought them. It's been an uphill battle the whole way. Garou can't mate with each other, lest their children be disfigured and malformed. And their numbers have only recently begun to rise again."

She inhaled, running a hand shakily back through her hair. "And the Wyrm isn't their only enemy. The Weaver is still hunting for the Wyld. Humans hate the garou, as you well know. The werewolves we fought against today were members of an insane tribe called the Black Spiral Dancers. They are the fallen garou; open and willing servants of the Wyrm, completely insane and corrupted by its madness. They destroy all that they see and touch. And the humans...the mega-corporations, or, at least, some of them, are led by servants of the Wyrm. Their 'black' projects are all meant to cut the Weaver's last ties to the Wyrm. These corporations are led by the most vile, disgusting people humanity has ever churned out.

"Corporations like Pentex are run, literally, by Satan's servants."

Max's jaw fell open. Finally, something had managed to surprise him, jarring the block in his mind, but not shattering it. The empty glass in his hands fell from his nerveless fingers, shattering on the floor. "My God...Pentex...the cores...those were..."

"Intentional. It's possible. It may even be likely." She turned her face back to face him, her eyes narrowed to dark slits. "Now you know why I wanted to tell the Captain and Commissioner. This may be how Pentex is attempting to free the Wyrm. The garou fight these servants of the Wyrm.

"And, as it happens, New York is Pentex's headquarters."



-

Max didn't feel like eating. He hadn't when he'd excused himself from the table, (much to Delilah Avalon's vexation) and he still didn't, even as he walked through the multi-level atrium that separated the Aerie building from Wyvern castle itself. As he stood on the inside of the plexiglas barriers that served as the building's outside walls at these levels, he reflected and considered.

His mind whirled back and forth over the various possibilities of the day. He could analyze and evaluate everything that had happened since he'd gone on duty earlier tonight...god. How long ago had that been? Three hours? Jumping Jesus on roller-blades. Three hours, and everything had been turned upside down on him - again.

Werewolves, elemental forces beyond the reckoning of man's imagination, his own sudden superpowers...what the hell was going on with the world these days?

He vaguely remembered the fight he'd had with Alicia. His feelings were still muddled as he looked down at his hands; he'd washed off the blood, but it still felt...dirty. Oily.

"That feeling of filth on your body...it's from your contact with the Wyrm's servants."

Max whirled, reaching for the gun he'd checked at the security desk downstairs. He relaxed, straightening back up and stuffing his hands deep into his pockets. "Hey, Christine."

Christine Xanatos arched a single elfin eyebrow, clasping her hands behind her back demurely, almost hiding them in the long black hair that reached the small of her back before ending in a tapered cut. Pointed elfin ears stuck out slightly from beneath her hair, and pupilless black eyes gazed softly at Max's face, even as he averted her gaze. She was petite, and classically beautiful, with a slim, curvaceous figure, accentuated by the folds of the simple white-and-black robes she wore.

Her mouth split into a slight grin. "Try not to sound so happy to see me, Detective Osaka."

"Sorry." He mumbled, turning back to the city-scape, still not daring to look at her. He found her exceedingly attractive, and knew that if he were to even look at her, he'd end up gawking, and his imagination would run away with him. And, somehow, Christine had the daunting ability of being able to almost read his mind on a whim. She'd embarrassed him several times already, much to the delight of the Clan and his constant consternation, but, this was the first time the two of them had actually been alone in the same room.

And he didn't know her well enough to trust that she wouldn't rip his head off if he had a single impure thought.

He didn't hear her move; nevertheless, she was at his side, staring out across the city before he realized she'd even moved. "You're distracted by everything that's happened recently, aren't you?"

"Nah, I'm fine. Ol' ironguts Osaka, that's me."

"That's what Detective Shields called you."

To his credit, Max gave no outward sign that her comment had reached him. Inwardly, he felt his guts twist, as though some unseen hand had simply grabbed a handful and forcibly rearranged everything. "Yep. Melly used to call me that." A slight smile creased his lips. "I once managed to put away five chili-dogs at a picnic the precinct threw in the park, all without feeling froggy afterwards. That's how I earned that nickname."

Christine shook her head, her shoulders quaking in silent laughter. "I remember that picnic. That chili could've been easily mistaken for radioactive isotopic residue."

"But damn, did it taste...that was six years ago!"

"So?"

"And you remember something that trivial?"

Christine shrugged slightly. "A gift from my pater, I would assume. I remember everything I see, hear, and experience. Pleasure, pain...everything."

Max winced visibly. "Even that nasty taste in your mouth after you wake up; like a bullfrog crawled down your throat and died the night beforehand?"

She laughed, making Max's heart skip a beat. Damn, but she is intoxicating.

"Yes, even that sandpapery feeling. Thank the gods for toothpaste, hmm?"

"Indeed," he agreed readily.

They stood in silence for another moment, looking out across the city.

"Alicia told us about your argument earlier. She didn't give Commissioner Maza the list. She said she'd give you your two days, but..."

"...but it's a moot point now." Max snorted, shaking his head sharply. "She's already made the decision for me. If I withhold information from the chief, I'm interfering with the ongoing investigation as to just what the hell is still making the voomers go rogue." He sighed deeply, dragging a hand down his face and scratching along the insides of his eyes. "I'll...get her a copy of the list tomorrow, before I go on duty."

Christine nodded delicately, her bangs bobbing ever-so gently. "I believe that will set Alicia's mind at ease, at least partially. She is...taking June's death rather hard at the moment. She'll be taking a day or two off to sort things out. Tie up loose ends with the Rats, perhaps attend his funeral..."

"That'd be good for her." He rolled his neck, eliciting two loud 'pops' from his vertebrae. "And it'll give me a chance to catch up on all that paperwork that's been piling up on my ass."

"Max, Elisa has offered the same amount of time off to you."

Max's head whirled. His face creased into a huge frown, his brow wrinkling heavily. "What in the - why? I just had a day off!"

"I'd hardly call getting drunk and passing out after a Cinemax Monster Movie Marathon taking time off."

"Oh, what would you know? That kind of thing's as deeply ingrained into a cop's psyche as coffee and donut - "

Christine cut him off with a sharp look, her brow furrowing in a manner that shut him up almost instantly. "Max...you've been through a lot in the past month and a half. You've lost a partner and a best friend, and you've gained another one. You've faced down at least ten voomers, you've seen your fellow officers get gunned down. You are currently involved in a conspiracy stretching across megacorporations, and it could be said that, by attempting to track down every voomer on that list - or, at least, all those in New York - you have taken the welfare of the entire city's populace into your own hands. You are now also aware of extradimensional forces and wars that have been raging on all around you, ever since before your first racial memory. Face it; you're tired."

Max didn't want to agree. He fought with every fiber of his being to disagree with her. To just look her dead in the eye and say, 'I can handle it.' But he'd be lying. And he'd burn out; fast and hard, probably taking someone down with him.

"You're tired, Max. But you don't want to trust it to anyone else. And, at the same time, you don't want to see Alicia get hurt." Christine smiled wryly, tucking her hands into the folds of her robes. "That's why you didn't give Elisa the list in the first place. That's why you still don't want to. And that's why you never tracked the voomers on that list down while you were on-duty."

Max sagged. She was right, and he desperately didn't want her to be. He didn't know what he wanted, but, damnit, he didn't want her to be able to read him so completely. Yet, at the same time...it felt good. Somewhere inside him, a burden was suddenly gone, and it felt...good. Really, really good.

Time passed. Max and Christine got to talking some more, commenting on everything from political views to the weather to the garou and the rest of the sentient terrestrial species' that Max didn't know about.

By the night's end, he knew of the fey and their dark brethren; of the uber-mages, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Illuminati. He knew of her past, and the pasts of her parents and grandparents.

And she knew almost everything about him. Even about the 'evolve' tattoo, written in kanji, on the inside of his left hip.



-

Every decision she had to make these days juggled someone's life. She felt as if she were both the King and the Pawn. The choice was ultimately hers, she knew. But each decision led to the same conclusion; death, destruction, and sorrow.

Elisa Maza stared at the disk in her fingers, almost wishing it to go away. She sincerely wanted the power to do that. But, of course, it wouldn't go away; the list Max had given her would still be there, in her hands.

Old hands. Grizzled, wrinkled hands, that had seen the light of the sun for too long. I'm a relic. I should have died when he did. Now...my revenge is all I have left. And God forgive me for it.

A single, wrinkled finger touched the keypad of her computer, calling up speed-dial. The phone was answered.

"This is Commissioner Elisa Maza..."



-

From the journal of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka:

"I take back everything I ever said about Christine Xanatos. She doesn't scare me anymore; not after our talk. No, she's the kindest, most caring creature I've ever met. She gives freely of her time and energy, with no thought to recompense at all. And God, what a body.

"She reminds me of Melly.

"I've decided to take the Commissioner's offer of another few days off. Tonight, Alicia and the Clan are attending June-Moon-Rising's funeral. It's supposedly a big event for the Rats; representatives from the three main urban tribes are attending; the Fianna, the Glass Walkers, and the Bone Gnawers. There's some sort of party or feast afterwards that the squirt, Drake, just could not shut up about.

"Eugh. I don't want children. Lord knows I don't want children. Especially after those terror-cubs (y'know, the mutates who can throw around lightning like a damn comic-book supervillain) zapped me with those freakin' lightning-bolts again. I swear, my ass has enough static charge at this point to fry a voomer.

"At any rate, I gave the Starling-list to the Commissioner earlier this morning. She sent me back home, under orders to get some rest. Earlier, that sounded like a really good idea. But now...

"...I saw the abyss in my dreams. I stood at its perimeter and looked down. It was...black. The deepest black, that no light can possibly penetrate. It was like a train wreck; I desperately wanted to look elsewhere, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. I've tried desperately to analyze just what the hell it meant, but I can't figure it out. I told Christine, and she said she didn't know either. Looked like she meant it, too.

"Except she hesitated.

"Just what the hell is going on in this town? I'm fucking Superman alluvasudden, my partner's been shtupping a dead werewolf, and the girl I was this close to feeling anything remotely resembling romantic attachment towards is lying through her teeth. Like she knows something, but doesn't want to say so.

"It's...annoying. It's really annoying. It's so damned annoying, it's just...oh, forget it. End of Evangelion is playing on the idiot-box again; I'll write more later, after Shinji quits choking the bishop.

"Like it'll make more sense later. Right."



-

"Fascinating." Richard Starling murmured under his breath. "Fascinating indeed. She turns on her own..? No, of course not." His mouth split into the slightest display of a smile. "She doesn't know."

"That would be the most logical conclusion, Rick." Lucinda grumbled, tapping away on her personal data-assistance unit. "At any rate, the file was earmarked specifically for that winged tramp."

"Yes. Any thoughts?"

"Just one, sir." Her lips broke into a feral smile, her eyes narrowing darkly. "The hacker, or hackers, are associated with the Aerie Clan in some manner. It's not someone inside the organization directly."

"Why not?" Starling already knew the answer; he was testing her. She found it mildly irritating that he still did that.

"Because that whelp of Xanatos' would have handled it himself. These hackers wanted it handled officially, to put pressure on us and make sure that this kind of experimentation never happened again. To do that, they'd have to give it to someone they thought they could trust to do the right thing, who had all the connections needed to get an investigation rolling. That bitch, Alicia, was apparently the most logical choice."

"Indeed." Starling's eyes narrowed. "And based on your conclusions, who would you conclude this hacker would be?"

"Is this a joke? The only people in existence with the necessary skills and contacts are Nene Romanova, Lexington Wyvern, and the Shadowrunner Silk. Neither Romanova nor Silk have any affiliation with Alicia Wyvern."

"You're sure?"

Lucinda rolled her eyes. "For Christ's sake, Richard. Romanova's in Japan, working with the United Nations Voodoo Organic Metal Extension Resources Anti-Terrorism Board, and Silk is in Antarctica, tracking down a Snow Dragon. He's been there for the past six months. It must be Lexington Wyvern. No one's seen or heard from him for the past decade; even his godson thinks he's dead."

"The perfect background from which to launch a series of anonymous raids on the super-conglomerates..."

"Exactly."

"Well done, my dear." He smiled slyly. "Now find him. Kill him, and anyone who's working for him. These damned Wyld-lings must be made to understand that I will not tolerate their half-assed interference."

"Understood, sir." She sneered. "Happily."

"Now, what else do we have to talk about?"

"Pentex, sir."

Starling scowled deeply. "That idiot Moran is moving his Niggurath project too quickly. Our own Tiamat and CyberSolutions' Agru projects have to be completed in tandem. Simply because the first point, the Sotai, and the second, the Wyvern, are both nearing completion, does not mean that the schedule can be rushed. If he thinks otherwise, then he is truly a far greater idiot than we initially suspected."

"The usual threats and warnings, then?"

Starling grunted. "Don't bother. Just feed the head of his board of directors to the Children. If the bastard continues to remain obstinate, feed him next."



-

Elektra Dracon held a cup of steaming green tea in her hands, staring past the pale reflection of herself, out into the night. Manhattan was once again alive tonight. She could practically feel the impotent rage of the police, the wanton anger of the populace, even from her 20th-floor suite. She relished it; the sheer lawlessness that was the reality of New York City, and indeed the world, these days.

She was thin and waif-like, with features that made her look elfin in comparison to most humans. Her ears had a slight tapering effect to them, but she still passed for human. Alone, she was physically stunning. The jewelry she wore, a delicate necklace and moderated emeralds that sparkled half-as-bright as the fire in her eyes, and the black kimono she sported, leant her an air of dangerous, feminine authority.

Elektra sipped at her tea, while dwelling on events of the past month. The voomers...yes. Big Red, the creator and de facto leader of the Vigilantes, had told her a month ago that the voomers - particularly, Starling Incorporated's models - were beginning to...what was the phrase he coined so eloquently? "Going in, then out, of their collective minds." Something to that effect.

As the financial backer of the Vigilantes, she was privy to all the information Red had access to, after all.

So she'd placed a call to Starling. Had a particularly belligerent encounter with his aide de camp, a 3rd-generation voomer woman with a cold streak as deep as the white in her hair named Lucinda. She'd finally maneuvered her way around Lucinda, and gotten ahold of Starling himself. He hadn't known what she was talking about, of course. But he invited her to visit. She accepted.

And then she'd sold her soul to the devil.

She sighed with a false drama, lifting the teacup to her lips again. "Madman. But his money's as good as anyone else's."

"Milady Elektra..?"

Elektra turned from the balcony window, fixing the man who'd spoken with an impassive gaze. "Yes, Scratch, what is it?"

The man known as Scratch was her right hand man. He was almost twice her senior, and he'd served the Dracon family, even back during Tony Dracon's heyday. But Tony Dracon was killed in prison, as was his cellmate, a man named Tomas Brode. Tony's top aide, a man called 'Glasses,' retired afterwards. The next Dracon in line, Elektra's father, Nathaniel Dracon, saw to it that Glasses' retirement was made somewhat more...permanent. Scratch had risen through the ranks swiftly, and he'd displayed a level of loyalty to the Dracon family that could only be described as inspiring. Oh, he was paid an exorbitant amount of money, to be sure, but Elektra had no doubt that he felt he owed the Dracon family a debt that could be repaid only with his life.

Such mindless devotion was easily exploitable. And she'd exploited him often, helping him move through the ranks of the Dracon syndicate rapidly, in exchange for the occasional favors; a hit here or there. The usual.

Nathaniel Dracon died of lung cancer. A lung cancer that came on suddenly, and simply struck him dead within a week. Elektra had superseded her brother's authority, and taken over the Dracon syndicate for herself. When he'd tried to protest, she'd made sure he disappeared.

And now, Scratch was loyal only to her.

"They're here." Scratch said simply, stepping away from the double doors, throwing them wide as he did so.

Three figures, one lumbering, awkward, and massive, stepped into the room. They wore suits of armor of gleaming red, white, and yellow.

Big Red. Pure White. Angry Yellow.

Those were the names Elektra had mentally assigned to the three members of the Vigilantes. Big Red was the leader. She knew the least about him, and yet she'd taken him into her bed several times.

God, whoever had taught him how to make love, they'd done their job well.

Kevin O'Leary wore the massive white suit. He was the heavy weapons expert of the group, and she knew that he could be the most troublesome of the three. He was the group's conscience, and, though he was a massive, lumbering idiot, he seemed to strike a chord in both Red and Yellow. Elektra sighed inwardly; he could definitely be a problem, but, God help her, she actually liked the dolt. He symbolized the purity of spirit and essence that she had never bothered to attain.

Angry Yellow...yes, that was definitely Christiana Asuncion. She was a martial artist with a history veiled in secrecy. She bore scars all across her body. Scars so deep, that they stood out like tattoos. She had once been a street fighter in Brazil, fighting for respect and money. And she got both; she'd dominated the fighting cages wherever she went. No man could put a hand on her. She'd mastered a number of martial arts forms, including the art of vibroblade combat. The truly impressive part, however, was that she was self-taught.

Something haunted the woman's past, however. And try as she might, Elektra had been completely unable to track down just what it was that filled the woman with so much cold, impotent fury, driving her to prove herself again and again.

But, again, the most dangerous was Big Red himself. He had within him...a seed of evil. Not the evil of the Bible, the struggle of God against Satan...no, the seed he bore within his heart and soul was that of a lost spirit, betrayed and driven to madness. She'd seen it, only fleetingly, the last time he'd had sex with her.

He had almost killed her then.

And now, he was her project.

"Thank you, Scratch. Please, come in, lady and gentlemen. I'd offer you seats, but I'm afraid those HARDsuits you're wearing would simply crush my furniture." Elektra affected a cool smile. "Can I get you anything..? Something to drink, perhaps?"

Red shook his head, but Kevin, lifting up the visor of his faceplate, turned a sour glare on Scratch. "Whiskey. Lots of it."

Elektra nodded to Scratch, who stepped to the bar and proceeded to scrounge around for the drink.

Red growled, the external speakers of his HARDsuit making his voice sound tinny and mechanical. "You drink too much, O'Leary. Your liver must be made of stone."

"I'm Irish." The larger man grumbled, accepting the drink from Scratch and going to work on the bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Elektra, out of sheer amusement, watched as he put back the whole thing in one gulp, lucidly handing the empty bottle back to a stunned Scratch.

"Why've you called us here, Mrs. Dracon?" Red growled, crossing his arms over his chest, drumming metallic talons on his forearms. "We have better things to be doing."

"Yes, I know. I do have my own puppets inside the ADP. Now, as to why I asked you here..." She turned back to the balcony door, setting the empty cup-and-saucer down on the bar as she passed it. "I have a certain number of friends with private interests. Given the nature of my profession, this should come as no surprise to you."

"Consider me floored." Red droned sarcastically. "You're beating around the bush. Get to it."

"Recently, a number of potentially dangerous files were hacked from an acquaintance's database and delivered to a small voomer-engineering and processing firm, down in the corporate ward. I want to hire you and your team to retrieve these files, and to teach this firm the error of its ways." She smirked. "Raid the main offices, and trash a warehouse. Your payscale is...negotiable."

Elektra expected a response from Red; what she got was a thick Irish brogue. "Sorry, missy..." Kevin grumbled, shutting the visor on his helmet. "But we don't do freelan - "

"Quiet, Kevin." Red growled. It was barely over a whisper, hardly noticeable, but full of import and warning.

Kevin's head turned, and he stared at his boss with, what Elektra assumed, was a look of absolute shock.

"Nine million." Red said matter-of-factly. "To be deposited into our joint account upon completion. What about the hackers?"

"Oh..." Elektra's mouth split into a sinister grin. "...they're being handled."



-

"Christ, this thing stinks." One of the medical technicians snarled under his breath, waving in front of his nose in a vain attempt to get rid of the smell.

The werewolf hunkering down in the corner, digging into a ham-shank hungrily, looked up, glaring daggers at the med-tech. "Be quiet! He was one of our kind's greatest warriors. Show respect to him, human."

"Yes." The Doctor said shortly, a thick Eastern European brogue springing from lips parched and cracked with age, as he peered down at the mummified corpse prone on the table. "Don't forget, my dear August, that you sold him to us for a paltry meal. This shell is now our property."

The werewolf seemed to shrank away, but he managed a challenging snarl. "That 'paltry meal' will help to feed thousands in the inner city..."

"Save the excuses for someone who cares. Now get out of here. You've done your job."



-

Lucinda's mouth broke into a feral smile. "We have them now."

Starling simply gazed at her impassively. "Indeed. Then handle it. I expect those files to be on my desk by morning."



-

Kenji Cromwell peered around the corner, sticking his head slowly, warily around the side of the doorway, to peek into the crack of the door. Over and over he tried to tell himself that this was wrong, unethical, and completely improper. And over and over again, he refused to listen to himself.

So, here he was, trying to get a peek of Miyu in the shower.

It wasn't necessarily easy-going; she was an enhanced, liberated 3rd-generation voomer, after all. It wasn't exactly a simple matter to sneak up on them. But he'd been quiet thus far, moving slowly and carefully. He'd managed to creak the bathroom door open a crack, and he could hear her singing - a sweet, melodious sound that made his ears tingle. He nudged the door open another inch, pressing his face into the crack just slightly. There. He could see her. Her back was arched as she washed shampoo and conditioner from blood-red hair that ran down to her shoulders. He drank in the sight of her; synthetic muscles coiling in intricate patterns down along the length of her spine, in her arms and shoulders. Water cascaded down white skin that seemed dyed, down the tattoo of a gryphon and dragon battling in a yin-yang pattern that sat between her shoulder-blades.

God, Kenji thought to himself as he watched her. She's beautiful.

It was halfway through that first thought when the first explosion put him flat on his ass.



-

Kenji would have sworn that he hadn't been down and dazed for more than a second. And yet, in that second, two things had happened; the intruder-alarms within the sub-basements the Underground Railroad lived in blared to irritating life. And Miyu had come out of the shower, wearing nothing but a towel, standing over him.

And she was glaring right at him.

"You..." She growled, voice barely above a whisper. "I'll...kill you, Cromwell..."

"Krul think that need to wait." A deep, basso voice grunt-yelled from down the corridor. Both Kenji and Miyu turned to see the ogre Krul, followed by his loyal dog, Dog, come pounding towards them. "We under attack!"



-

Lexington saw it all through a veil of cold, calculative self-evaluation. I should never have involved Alicia. Blood splashed against the solid plexiglas window of his office; it dripped across the bar, as men and women moving with a military precision tore his club, his creation, apart. His patronage scattered like cattle, like sheep. They were cut down just as quickly. Iron, silver, and magickally-enhanced rounds were obviously being used. Lex could even see the occasional flash of high-powered energy cannons, only visible because of the heavy fog.

Now, people are dead. But they would have died anyway, wouldn't they have?

You self-important bastard. You thought you could do something to stop this, didn't you? Or to stop Starling and his compatriots from unleashing that beast? You arrogant little fuck. Sarah would be so disappointed in you.

His inner monologue decided to, without any prompting whatsoever, change voices. It whispered to him, in the cold recesses of his mind, in the voice of his long-dead mate, Sarah Conway. You've got to do something. Miyu, Krul, Dexter, Kenji...even Dog...they're all going to die if you don't get them out of here...

Lexington closed his eyes, leaned forward. The death-dance continued below him, in the pit. Some of the clientele had started to fight back; thugs, drug-runners, and the like, who all just wanted to live one more day. Garou tore into the men and women Starling had sent to kill the Underground Railroad.

I'm sorry, Sarah. It would seem I have to break my promise.



-

Somewhere along the way, they'd found weapons. And clothes for Miyu. So, instead of a skimpy towel, she now wore one of the skin-tight jumpsuits she seemed to favor.

And she sported a really, really big gun. A big gun that had been soft-wired into the faux neural network of her brain.

Now, they ran. They ran for the pit, where they could help, or die trying. Krul was sprinting out ahead of them, with Dog at his side, panting as she moved to keep up with her master.

Kenji sported a military assault rifle, one of the M-16-variants, he guessed, that he'd picked up on their brief stop at the weapons locker. Not for the first time, he wished he'd had the foresight to practice on the damned things before now.

No time like the present.

And then, with a suddenness that surprised him, they were in the thick of it.

Vampires, humans, werewolves, voomers - all moved in and around each other, going hand-to-hand wherever they could, shooting at anything they thought was hostile. So much heat flew, that Kenji was simply tempted to crawl into the corner and shoot whoever the hell won.

He stumbled over a flattened corpse. A garou shouldered him aside, completely engulfed in her Rage. Time seemed to slow and flow, as did he. The garou fell, her brains splashing out from the back of her skull as a silver round tunneled through to the other side of her head. Blood and grey matter soaked his face, and the twitching corpse fell to the ground. Kenji stared at it for an eternity; a second.

Miyu crashed into him, knocking him to the ground, sending them both skittering and rolling along, in, and over the blood and fluids covering the floor. Around them, people died screaming. The vampires yelled, riled up into a bloodlust as they fed on friend and foe alike. The garou were no better, attacking any who weren't other garou.

Miyu yelled at him, shaking him as blood and bile dripped from her fingers, her skin, her face...her hair. Kenji couldn't hear what she was saying. He simply stared at her hair, at the wet blood that had matted and clumped it together. He couldn't see any difference in color. She was still yelling at him, probably shouting imprecations, insulting his intelligence, degrading his manhood...

But all he saw was her hair.



-

Lexington smelled blood. Some of it was his; most of it wasn't. He couldn't smell much of anything past three meters, thanks to the sheer crush of bodies as the two forces met and tore into each other. He'd caught sight of Dexter, Krul, and the others. Even Dog. They'd all been doing fine at the time, but he couldn't get near him.

Vaguely, he remembered Hudson's instructions, from when he was a hatchling. Concentrate on what's around ye, lad. In close-quarters combat, you can't do anything for anyone in the distance. Especially not if ye're dead. Keep your friends close to ye, boy; but make your enemies closer. Never forget that God gave ye yer deadliest weapons when ye were born.

Lexington flicked the combat knife in his right hand into a slash-guard position, with the flat of the blade pressed against his forearm. A soldier, one of the seemingly thousands that had come out of nowhere, came at him from the side. Lex pivoted, bringing his left foot up and around in a hook-kick that caught the man across the hips, and moving Lex himself out of the man's path. The man stumbled, bleeding from the hole Lex's fetlock had put in his side. He whirled, stumbling as he did so over one of the myriad corpses on the floor. He slashed with the knife; Lex ducked under the attack, and raked the combat-knife's monofilament-sharpened edge across the man's stomach. The body armor he wore separated like tissue; the soft skin and intestines it protected fared no better. The man fell, clutching at his stomach, desperately trying to hold his intestines in.

Lexington brought the knife's blade down on the back of the soldier's neck, putting him out of his misery.

Another soldier, this one a woman, bumped into him. They whirled on each other, Lexington emitting a hissing roar as he did so. He dropped to three limbs, holding his knife-hand ready. And then he saw her face.

She looked like his ex-wife.

"You..." The woman breathed, her eyes widening. "I've found him! Captain, I've - hurk!"

Lexington took the woman down, pouncing on her with all fours, burying his fangs into the side of her neck, ripping away a sheet of flesh as he tore his mouth away. She staggered, and finally fell, gasping, crying out inarticulate prayers.

Lexington didn't hear her. His eyes smoldered their bright white hue, and his face twisted into a mask of anger. He felt betrayed; hateful, vengeful, all the emotions he'd tried so hard to blot out ever since she'd died.

The knife flashed, as did his talons and his teeth as he tore into her corpse, ripping away obscene amounts of flesh. Blood quickly coated his features, and his eyes, burning white and wild, stained with blood and tears. He screamed inarticulately, his own cries drowning out, for brief seconds, those around him.



-

They'd found him, still hacking and slashing at the vivisected, barely-recognizable corpse he was crouching upon, whittling away at bones and tissues with a knife that was so slick with blood, he could barely hold onto it.

Miyu and Krul had to pry him away from the woman's corpse, screaming and spitting obscenities in a dozen languages as he fought them. "Let me go! She won't leave me again! I won't let her do it to me again! Not again," he'd screamed.

Lexington was a bit more lucid now, thankfully.

Kenji found himself regarding his leader a bit more warily, giving the gargoyle a wide berth. He still looked...unstable. But unstable wasn't nearly a strong enough word. Lex looked ready to turn into a mindless, bloodthirsty beast at most any minute.

He hadn't bothered to partake of the shower the others had. As such, he still reeked of sweat. And blood. His normal green complexion had been blotted out, turned into the rust-red of dried blood. Kenji had never seen him like that; even the unflappable Miyu, who knew Lexington better than any of them did, had confided that she'd never seen that side of him.

Krul had practically shit his pants. Dog was hiding behind him, whining quietly.

Dexter...was Dexter. He'd lost his precious desktop, but at least he'd managed to save the portable. As for Lexington's tantrum, he seemed to be able to take it in stride. Kenji envied him that.

"We can't stay here." Lex finally said, placing a hand delicately, almost tenderly, on the remains of the polished-mahogany desk he'd had in the office looking out on the pit. "It's not safe. The police, the garou, the companies...they'll all send people to investigate." He sighed. "Our war here is over. We can't stay here."



-

"Damnit, Richard, why the hell did you call me?! I was in the middle of putting the kids down for the - "

Lucinda never finished the sentence. The back of Richard Starling's bio-mechanical hand came up and around so hard, and so fast, that she never saw it coming. She crumpled, her personal data assistant falling to the ground and clattering away. Her hair immediately became unkempt, and her dress, once alluring, just seemed to fold and crumple against her body.

If she'd been human, the blow would have killed her instantly.

He hit me, she thought dully, her mind awhirl, as she held a hand to her cheek, red, synthetic eyes wide with disbelief.

"You have created," Starling started, stepping away from her to the window of his office, "an unmitigated disaster."

"I...I don't...what..?" She stammered, her mind in turmoil as she struggled to comprehend what was happening.

"I ordered you to retrieve the files and punish the hackers. I did not order you to butcher hundreds of potheads. The vampire clans are in an uproar; the garou tribes in this city have already destroyed three of my subsidiary companies, and the AD Police are beginning to sniff around. Do you have any idea just how much damage you caused by that little stunt?"

He hit me. "Sir..? I sent in Captain Sohryu's team...I thought..."

"Be quiet. Captain Sohryu is dead. Some damned vampire sucked him dry. His entire regiment has been obliterated. And the files were neither retrieved, nor were the hackers dealt with. I have been made to look like a laughing stock. I shall have to deal with this." He exhaled slowly, his voice getting quite low, and quite deadly. "Now get out. I will deal with you later."

He hit me.



-

"I don't like it." Kevin growled, running a hand back through his short-cropped ash-blond hair. "I don't like it at all. We're just supposed to go after voomers, not -"

He never finished the sentence. Red, still in his combat armor, sans helmet, knocked him back apace with a backhand across the jaw. "Just who the hell do you think you are, O'Leary?" He growled, grabbing a fistful of the larger man's shirt and yanking him down to eye-level, growling the whole time. "When I hired you, I explained to you in no uncertain terms that I would be paying you an exorbitant amount of money to fight for me." He shoved Kevin backwards, knocking the taller man against the wall. "You'd best get your priorities straight, and fast. You're a mercenary, Major. You have been ever since you hired on as a bouncer at that pathetic night-club. Do you want to go back there, O'Leary?" He didn't wait for a response, grabbing Kevin by the beef in his upper arm and shoving him bodily towards the Machine Pit.

"Now get suited up before I do something both of us will regret."



-

Kevin still didn't like it. Even as he laid into a series of file cabinets with the superhuman strength afforded him by the HARDsuit, he didn't like it. Papers spilled out across the ground, as did splinters of wood, metal and glass.

They'd been given separate assignments; Kevin was to trash the main offices upstairs while Christiana went after the actual factory in the below-ground levels. Red was supposedly creating a disturbance outside that would keep security occupied. Hopefully.

So, here they were, trashing empty offices, and likely robbing hundreds of innocent people of their jobs. This is insane. Kevin groused to himself, even as he armed a flare and tossed it into a stack of papers along the ground. The papers immediately caught fire, burning out their short lives. The rug caught fire next; the desks, the cubicles, the offices...none were spared the flames.

Kevin simply stood, arms crossed over his chest, watching his handiwork, as he felt his guts twist and thrash inside him. I can't believe I'm doing this.

The automatic fire-suppression sprinkler systems finally snapped to life, weakly, casting a pathetic drizzle of water down upon the fire. They did nothing to stop its spread; if anything, the flames rebelled against their aquatic overlords, vaporizing the water droplets before they touched the ground. The flames flicked up across the walls, over posters and bulletins from management. The ceiling caught fire.

I shouldn't be doing this.

Kevin stood and watched, even as the flames licked at his HARDsuit. They didn't take or find purchase, thankfully. Doubtlessly, he had the liquid metal core that made up the shell of his HARDsuit to thank for that. It burned; and it burned, and it burned. The whole scene before him, while thankfully devoid of the senseless violence he'd seen in the Royal Marines, nonetheless made him nauseous. And when he finally could take no more, his brain made his feet move. On some level, he wanted to stay, to shed his armor and join the fire's embrace.

Instead, he simply stepped out. The entire floor of the building was ablaze, thanks to him. All the records kept by this one company, which was just looking for an edge, were going up in smoke. Oh, they could likely be retrieved, but so much time, money, and effort would be wasted, and he...

He'd be a couple million dollars richer.

And as he came to the bottom levels, sullen and deep in thought, where the Boss and Christiana were waiting for him, he carried himself with none of his usual swagger or bravado. He just felt...empty.

He could hear the two of them talking in their usual clipped, precise tones. He didn't know what they were talking about, per se, until he looked up.

"Sweet Mother of Christ."



-

Angela Avalon sighed tiredly, hugging her arms to her torso and caping her wings about her. The nights seemed to get colder and colder as she got older. How old was she now..? Maybe eighty years old. In the old days, she would have been considered an Elder at this point, but the humans wouldn't even say she'd reached middle-age.

Drake was inside, playing on the computer like he always did. He never had any interest in honing his skills as a warrior; always too wrapped up in his games and distractions. She couldn't find the heart to be mad at him, to make him get up and get into the dojo, where she and Delilah could teach him how to protect his Clan and castle.

She sighed again. Face it, you decrepit old hag. She thought, mentally exhausted. You're bitter and tired. You're a horrible mother.

Deep down, somewhere in her soul, Angela wanted to cry. She wanted to just cling to someone, make someone else take care of Drake, maybe find him a father, someone he would respect and listen to...

She sighed again. You tired, pathetic old hag. You can't even pray right.

Angela leaned forward, resting her hands on the tower's single perch. Goliath's old roost; Brooklyn's, too. She remembered when he'd initially refused to take the spot. He'd called himself unworthy, not fit to take it over. She'd tried to talk to him, but he shut her out. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't talk to him. And when they'd made love...it had been hollow. Without emotion, or even pleasure, for either one of them. Every day, he just got further and further from her, up until the day he told her he was leaving.

And when he left, she actually felt happy. Finally, she'd be free of his baggage, and she could get on with her life, and she could raise her son as he should be raised.

But nothing worked out like it ever should have. Drake started drifting away from her too, and the Xanatos' just couldn't help her. Fox tried so hard to help her with Drake, as did Alex and his family, but...

"No one wants me." She breathed, so quietly that she doubted even the wind heard her. "No one cares for me. I'd be better off dead. I'm not worth anything. Not even the food it takes to keep me alive..."

Her eyes, inevitably, were drawn downward, to the city stretched out below her. In the distance, sirens blared - police officers on their way to yet another murder, another rape, another battered spouse...

And she couldn't help any of them. She couldn't even help herself, how could she be expected to help others? She hung her head, black hair cascading around her drawn, haggard face. A decade of tears had made her cheeks sunken and sallow, and she looked sick. Her eyes were sunk back into her skull, her hair tangled and worn.

And nobody cared.

"Nobody'd notice." She groused, her eyes inevitably drawn to the pavement, the sidewalk and street in front of the Aerie tower. "Would they even bother to scrape up the remains, or would they just make a voomer clean it up..?"

"Mom!"

Angela's head whipped around. Drake was yelling to her, for some reason. She could hear his heavy footfalls as he ran up the tower's steps. He burst into view, shoving the wooden door-cover aside with a heavy slam. His head peaked out, his face split into a gigantic grin. Energy practically radiated from him, and she'd be damned if it wasn't infectious. She forced a smile onto her face. "Yes, Drake, what is it?"

"He's back! You've gotta come see! C'mon, mom, hurry!" With those words, Drake disappeared back down the hole, scampering away.

Angela, confused, followed him with a bit more subdued enthusiasm. What the hell was he talking about..?



-

"Lex!"

Lexington looked up from his mug of coffee and whiskey, offering an exhausted smile to Angela. "Hey, Angie. Long time no see, huh?"

The two embraced, fresh tears of joy streaming down her face for the first time in more than a decade. They broke after awhile, Angela immediately swinging him into an under-armed hold and grating her knuckle atop his bald head in a classic noogie. "You miserable little green goblin! Where the hell have you been all these years?!"

"Gah!" Lexington wiggled out of her grasp, stomping playfully on her tail before embracing her in a hug. They pulled away after a time, Lexington dropping back to the couch and grabbing up his mug of coffee again. "Heh...grab a seat, Angie. Yer gonna want to stay awhile."

She did so, squeezing into the end of the couch next to Christine. All eyes were fixed on Lex and the various members of the battered and beaten Underground Railroad. Krul sat in the corner, dozing, Dog at his feet, doing the same. Miyu leaned against the wall next to the door, arms crossed over her chest, her right fist clenched tightly around the handgun slung under her arm. Kenji was likewise skittish, hands shaking as he tried to keep his tea from spilling. Dexter was in seventh-heaven, tacking away at a portable the Xanatos' had furnished for him out of seemingly nowhere.

"I'm going to tell you...all of you...things about me and about the world around us. I know you've all wanted to know these things for awhile, and that you've been taking bets, waiting to see who was right. I suppose someone will win the pot after I'm done." Lexington spoke quietly, forcing everyone who didn't possess super-human hearing to lean in, as to not miss anything. "You all know about my experiences before the Hunter's Moon; the Pack, the clones, and my gradual..." He trailed off, looking down at his hands. Both were artificial, as was the majority of his body. "...my gradual change. I look in the mirror these days, and I'm more voomer than man. And that doesn't bother me, for some reason. Why is that..?"

He waved it off. "That's irrelevant. Like I said, you all know about everything before the Hunter's Moon, and even before the Quarrymen's year of destruction. Everything after that...well. It's complicated." Inhale. "Things didn't change until about 2001, when I was petitioned for membership in the Illuminati. I was wary at first, of course, but I went with it. By this time, David and Fox were already mid-echelon members, and I knew that I could trust them - marginally. So I was installed, given their mark." He lifted up the shoulder-guard he wore, exposing his upper right arm and the eye-in-pyramid tattooed there. "They Illuminated me, and it was then that I began augmenting myself with biomechanics, increasing my strength, my speed...all my physical attributes were increased by several orders of magnitude. It felt good, even though it made Goliath nervous as hell. My voice changed, as well; became the vaguely mechanical, semi-emotionless incarnation that you all know it to be.

"I met Sarah, my wife...ex-wife...through the Illuminati. We hit it off pretty quickly. She gave me a balance I'd never known before, and she even thought the implants were kinda sexy..." Shrug. "Heh. That was my Sarah. She helped me through some bad rough spots. When she died...it was hell just to keep going. Night after endless night, I wasted away, plagued with thoughts of suicide just so it would stop. After awhile, with Alex, Dawn, David and Fox helping me in ways the Clan couldn't, I got better. I was never the same, even after my fling with another woman.

"And then Goliath and Broadway died. When they died...I felt nothing. No pain, no sorrow, nothing. My emotions just shut themselves down, to the point where I had just become a cold-hearted zombie. I disappeared for weeks on end, as you all well know, involved in my own projects."

He sighed, putting his face in his hands. "I'd been out shadowrunning, working as a freelance bounty hunter and mercenary. I hadn't killed anyone, but I'd come damned close. I turned my back, let others commit travesties of justice...and I didn't care. I just couldn't make myself.

"When Alex found out, he told me to go. He showed me the door, and told me not to come back. At least, not until I'd gotten my shit together. The Illuminati found me after awhile, crouched down in a whore-house in the Bronx, taking any number of narcotics. If it could be shot, snorted, inhaled, or experienced, I did it. And it never took its toll; funny thing about our stone-cold cure-all. Sure beats rehab." A snicker.

"Like I said, the Illuminati grabbed me. They cleaned me up, whipped me into something resembling shape. And they reminded me of just how badly I'd fucked up Sarah's posthumous trust in me.

"So, after all the rituals and the cleansing and other assorted...crap...that went along with me getting my act together, they gave me a mission. It was my job to track down and stop the voomer plague sweeping across the globe. I had the full support of the Illuminati at my back; they saw that the voomers were going to be trouble, and they were against the project now at any rate. After all, they'd learned their lessons where slavery was concerned, long ago in Atlantis, Babylon, Egypt...

"So I formed the Underground Railroad, with the Illuminati's backing. I enlisted Kenji fairly early, after he'd tried to hack some of the Illuminati's technological secrets. Dexter joined of his own accord, as did Krul; they'd been running together for awhile, the typical brains-brawn combination. These two are, frankly, the best slicer-bouncer team I've ever met. Miyu was the last to join our group, after Brooklyn found her, and we'd helped her back from the brink. She's still a hard-ass, as you can see, but she's got a soft spot for..." He trailed off, smirking. "Well. I'll just leave that to your various imaginations, hmm?"

"Shut up, Lex." Miyu grumbled, her chin sinking sullenly to her chest. "Wise-assed bastard."

Lex shrugged. "Masha." He muttered, slipping into a fractured elfin tongue. The word meant, literally, 'and you.' He waved it off. "At any rate. About three hours ago, our headquarters were raided by elite units from Starling Incorporated."

A chorus of surprised gasps emanated from the Clan's various members, save a few. Lex waited until they'd settled slightly. "We slipped out, more or less in one piece. That can be attributed to the ferocity of the club's former clientele, I imagine, and to the few Illuminati agents assigned to watch us." He snickered. "Never thought I'd actually have a use for them, actually..."

Again, he waved it off. "But I digress. Starling's private army came after us for two specific reasons. Two months ago, Kenji and I hacked into Starling's central mainframe, and sliced copies of two files. Decked their subsidiary drives pretty good, too. The first was Starling's Purple files; their compendium of every voomer under their manufacture that's ever gone rogue, and the list of those almost certain to go rogue. We were hired for that one; a small-time voomer-manufacturing company thought they could blackmail some money and technical specs from Starling.

"Obviously, intelligence is not one of the criteria we use to screen clients.

"I made sure that a copy of that file found its way into the ADP's hands, and I did that through Alicia. It was a...controversial decision, and one that some among us didn't particularly care for." Lex used no names, but the tightening at the sides of his eyes, and Kenji's tightened grip on the mug in his hands gave them away.

"The second file...the second file was the one that got us into the real pretty shit, to coin a phrase. I found it in my search for the Purple, and dumped myself a copy of that one as well. It was...is..." He sighed, trailing off, hanging his head.

"Starling's nearly completed work on a Galatea-class voomer."

The outcry of surprise Lex expected never came. Oh, the tension level soared, and Alex spat out a minute-long torrent of incoherent obscenities, but for the most part, silence was their only response. They all knew what it meant; there had existed only one Galatea-class voomer, and that had been Galatea herself. The original Sotai, based off the neural map of Sylia Stingray's brain, housed inside the biomechanical shell designed and constructed by her father, Dr. Stingray, was single-handedly responsible for the Tokyo MegaQuakes which killed millions, and the later MegaCrash, which claimed another hundred-thousand and the rebuilt city of Tokyo itself.

Japan was still recovering.

A Galatea-class voomer had theoretical control over the cores of every voomer it could come in contact with, whether it be physical or electrical or god-only-knew what other means. It could make them dance in a conga-line, or it could wipe humanity off the face of the Earth. And Lord knew nobody would be able to stop it, short of nuclear war.

Drake spoke first, breaking the tense silence with a single word.

"Fuck."

His mother promptly smacked him upside the head.



-

"Good to meet you at last. Forgive me, but my associates had informed me there were three of you. Where is your white-suited companion..?"

"Hung over." Red scowled. "As for this meeting, I'm afraid I cannot say the same of you, Richard Starling. From all I've heard, I'd have died happy if I'd never set foot in this office."

Richard Starling smiled from behind steepled fingers. Lucinda stood behind and to the side of him, poised and proper as she always was, though he knew it was a facade; she was an emotional wreck for some damned reason.

Christ, he didn't have time for emotional machines...

"Most people would venture that observation in reference to me, Leftenant." Starling said easily, using the honorific rank often associated with small-unit infantry commanders. "And quite often, that would be the last observation they'd ever make in their short, puny lives. More's the pity."

"So hard to find good pawns these days. Why am I here, Starling? Your intermediary knew the price, and she obviously passed it on to you. I have things to do; other contracts to honor." Red snarled. He was lying, of course; he wasn't the head of a mercenary unit, and his war against the rogue voomers of New York wasn't an advertisement of his teams abilities.

"I'd suggest you mind your tone, my friend."

"I'd suggest you mind a pair of angry mercenaries, Herr Starling. I ask again; why were we asked here?"

Starling's eyes narrowed. "Alright, Wyvern." Red bristled noticably, and Starling smirked again. "I'm sorry, I forgot; you dislike the use of your name. Very well, Leftenant; as you well know, certain files were swiped out from under my nose. You were hired to tie up a single resultant loose end, while my own people handled the rest. Unfortunately, thanks to some rather creative bungling within my private army's ranks, we've only managed to create more loose ends in the process."

"Hackers got away, huh? I heard about Gomorrah; the vampire clans are none too happy with your people right now, and the inner-city wolves are barking mad."

"Cute." Starling's eyes narrowed, the skin at their corners smoothing and tightening. "Yes, the hackers did escape my clutches. I do not particularly enjoy mistakes, and I do not make them twice. Therefore, I have given up my hunt of them."

"How magnanimous of you."

"I only want one of them. His name is Lexington Wyvern, and he is the one most responsible for the situation I find myself faced with." Starling's face wreathed into a mask of utter contempt. "He is now hiding in the Aerie tower, with that bastard child of David and Fox Xanatos. I cannot touch him at this time; my own projects consume my time."

Red scowled, prying the helmet off his head and scratching an itch along the side of his beak. "I'm well aware of your attempts to resurrect the Sotai, Starling. You can stop beating around the bush."

Starling feigned surprise; that this man knew of the Sotai was really no surprise. He often used that as a screen to protect against the possibility that someone might find out about the Children. "Well, then, my, uh...friend. It should come as no surprise to you that my time is not my own these days. So I need you to handle it. I want Lexington Wyvern destroyed. Not just dead; I want his Clan broken and bleeding, and I want his Underground Railroad torn irreparably asunder. If you can manage to kill the Xanatos brat in the process, so much the better. Questions?"

A red-taloned hand shot back through shock-white hair, streaked a light blue. "No."

"Does this raise any ethical problems for you or your team?"

Brooklyn Wyvern's mouth split into a contemptuous scowl. "Why would it?"