CHAPTER FIVE:
A SEARCH BEGINS
"The universe hates you.Deal with it."
—The World According To Seamus Harper, Chapter 12 Paragraph 8 Verse 3
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Tyr raised a dubious eyebrow as Trance landed, releasing the rope-crawler device as she landed nimbly on the other side of the canyon. "Now what?"
"You have to admit, that was actually fun," she admitted, lips twitching into a broad grin.
"Fun, she says," he muttered. It would have been easier if she'd used her ring, but the energy would have led to their detection. Hence, the hard way.
Dylan smiled to himself, tapping controls on his wrist monitor. "Voila. A complete map of the mountain and the fortress, right down to the last chamber and the last cavern, courtesy of the Argosy Corps of Engineers. Welcome to High Guard Station Acheron."
Tyr snorted as Dylan led them off. "What USED to be High Guard Station Acheron. If it's any consolation, the Nietzschean alliance lost fifty ships and three mobile infantry divisions taking this rock from the Commonwealth."
"Guess it's lucky they didn't expect the High Guard to come back," Trance pointed out.
"Not an irrational assumption, considering my people destroyed them utterly."
Dylan glanced at him. "Are you bragging or complaining?"
Tyr shrugged. "Observing."
Dylan shook his head. "It looks like our best way in is just around..."
He broke off as they found a doorway in the cliff-side, covered with a steel grating. Dylan grunted. "Oh-kay, this could be a problem." He checked his wrist monitor again, noting the readouts it displayed. "Automated defence systems. Large-bore gauss guns with hyperspectral sensors and fullerene plating. The ECM generators in the weave of our field uniforms should mask us at range."
"But if we get too close, they'll detect us," Tyr pointed out.
Dylan sighed. "Yeah. One way or another, we'll have to neutralise them."
"Find another route?" Tyr suggested. "They may have missed a tunnel or two."
Trance's ring flashed against her black gloves, and a screen appeared. On it, they could see a Drago-Kazov soldier, his face stern. "Security Squad Two, be advised. We are implementing a Kessel-Krieg Alert status. Command and Control Centre out."
Dylan stared thoughtfully at the grille. "They know we're here."
Tyr nodded in agreement. "We should fall back—formulate a contingency plan."
Dylan shot a sidelong look at Trance. "Remove that grille please?"
She winked at him as a tendril of energy shone forth from the ring. Silver droplets pattered to the ground as the grille melted, and the beam continued shining onwards, deep into the tunnel. Somewhere in the distance, a faint explosion could be heard.
Dylan jerked his thumb toward the destroyed entrance. "Here's my contingency plan: we're going in. Trance, signal the others to get ready. Any questions?"
So saying, he charged the doorway firing on the run, not giving Tyr a chance to answer.
He shook his head in mild disbelief as Trance sprinted after him. "Not now."
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"I've just received a signal from Trance. Dylan wants us to stand by for the assault and recovery phase," Rommie announced, her power ring sparking briefly.
"All right," Beka grinned cockily, flexing her hands where they rested upon the piloting controls. "You'd best get to an airlock."
Rommie nodded as she left Command.
Harper sighed, and Beka turned to him. "You okay shorty?"
"Don't worry— I never thought I'd say this but man Rommie's even hotter with that ring."
She chuckled and shook her head as she turned back to the viewscreen. "Just make sure you can do your job when things get busy."
"Hell, I just hope they stay busy even after we've taken out the Drago-Jerkoffs," he grinned. Beka winced inwardly, knowing all too well the dread paths his mind was straying towards.
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"It is done?"
Carmagnola smiled easily as he slipped from the cavern's considerable shadows. "Cuchulain has the information. And my observers tell me that he seems to have made the preparations we anticipated."
The robed figure seemed pleased by this. "Tell me...what is your personal opinion? How do you believe things will turn out?"
The blonde Nietzschean shrugged nonchalantly. "Nothing is guaranteed in this universe. But in this case a success is assured."
The figure took a step forward, seeming to pass through the cave's shadows much as another shadow might. "Are you playing games with me?" it asked softly.
Carmagnola sighed. "I thought you knew by now that everything in this existence is a game of sorts. Of strategy, of resources, of skill. However," he grinned wickedly at the robed figure's apparent discomfort, "I am not toying with you...yet."
"I strongly advise you never to do so," the figure growled. "It would be ...most ill advised for you to undertake such foolery."
"Oh really? Well, much as I appreciate your concern," he laughed, "believe me when I say that you are in no position to make threats or demands of me."
A golden creature appeared, walking through a solid rock wall. Gangly and slender, it carried a pair of daggers loosely at its sides. "Is that so?" the robed figure asked as the creature advanced.
There came a faint hiss as a splinter of metal shot from Carmagnola's sleeve. The shard tore into the creature, which exploded as though a tornado had struck a sculpture formed of sand, screaming in agony as it dissipated.
A black leather jacket fluttered to the ground as Carmagnola sprang forwards, bone blades erect. His first blow slashed through the robes as the hood fell back, revealing a bald, ebony-complexioned woman, her features fair indeed.
She lashed out, seeking to pluck out his heart—
She slumped, flickering between dimensions as she bled out from the wound in her gut.
Carmagnola snorted in disgust as the guise of a human woman fell away from the creature as it died.
Just as all the others he had encountered had died.
He studied the fingernails on his right hand as he recovered the jacket, studiously ignoring the dead minion as she vanished an atom at a time. He was most pleased with this little modification, if truth be told—always a rare substance around the devious mercenary. His thoughts dwelt in satisfaction upon the knowledge that his offspring would also benefit from this latest of genetic modifications he had developed, passing them on to the Nietzschean race over the coming generations.
He only regretted that his predecessor had failed to survive long enough to make a similar contribution to the betterment of the universe.
The creatures' employer would by now know the information he had imparted, and he doubted it would mourn their loss. A most interesting pawn it made for, he felt. A true challenge for his considerable talents. And most entertaining to manipulate...
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Things were going well.
Tyr would have said they were going too well.
Automated gun turrets, a formidable tactical obstacle at the best of times, had been swiftly destroyed by Trance, clearing their way. Harper's data extraction device had worked perfectly, supplying them with more up-to-date schematics of what had been High Guard Station Acheron.
And they had just transferred missile control to Dylan's wrist monitor.
Far too easy.
They came to a halt upon finding a squat, heavy blast door on their route to the fortress' computer core. A blast door that wasn't on the new schematics.
Dylan inserted an old device of his—a lock breaker from his Argosy Special Operations days—and the door promptly clicked unlocked.
"Huh. That was easy." It seemed the High Guard captain shared his sentiment.
"Very," Trance agreed, shifting uncomfortably.
Dylan opened the door, and found nothing but a metal wall on the other side. It seemed, he mused as he closed the door again, that his instincts were correct. "Trap," he simply stated.
"Really?" Tyr asked, nonplussed
Unnoticed, a faint whine began to sound, too highly pitched for the human ear to detect.
"Yeah."
He shrugged. "Their mistake."
"Yep," Dylan agreed.
Trance shook her head, trying to clear the headache that assailed her mind. Shields...she had to form shields, channel the Nietzscheans...into...kill-zone...
She collapsed to the floor, brown eyes bulging as her stomach heaved. She fought the urge with all her might, tried to suppress it—
—and then she succumbed, her last meal flooding from her lips, gushing from her gorge. She hawked and spat bile, and then was driven to her knees once more as a fresh torrent tore its way from her.
Far away, she could hear something...voices. Weapons firing...
She blacked out.
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Cuchulain grinned to himself as he watched the unfolding drama on his palm screen. The troops being sent in were guaranteed to be killed, but this was of no concern to him. They were sterile fools, every one of them, with everything to prove and gain and nothing to lose. Also, their loss would cause no grief among their families. Indeed, some would most likely be relieved that their embarrassing relatives had met their ends at last.
The weapon worked. The girl lay there, sprawled out cold in a puddle of her own regurgitated half-digested food, vulnerable whilst her companions massacred his expendable cannon fodder.
A light flashed in the corner of the screen, and his smile broadened still further. Phase two was ready.
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Smoke rose from force lance and gauss rifle alike, mingling with the steam from the injuries blasted in the bodies of the Drago-Kazov troops.
Dylan crouched beside Trance, now thankfully unconscious, and rolled her from the pool of her vomit, gently wiping a smear from her face.
"Any ideas?" he looked up at Tyr.
The other shrugged. "We'll have to carry her, but I haven't the first clue as to what did this. She's shown no signs of being ill recently, but with such an alien physiology I couldn't honestly say for certain that she is healthy for one of her kind."
"Rayner," Dylan realised. "He might know."
"Correct me if I'm wrong my captain, but I believe he happens to be dead. His advice pertaining to survival may be somewhat...limited in its worth."
"Yeah, and the Drago-Kazov have a weapon that can take down a Green Lantern, and not just any Lantern but Trance. Do you really want to stake your survival on that possibility?" Dylan shot back as he grasped Trance's left hand. "Come on Kyle, we need you."
An emerald outline formed, its light projected from the ring. Swiftly, it became recognisable as Trance's predecessor, dressed in casual clothing native to his time period. "Captain Hunt!" he greeted them. "Is the mission over—no, I'm guessing not," he hastily halted the question as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings. "Ah," he winced as he crouched over Trance's still form. "Nasty."
"Any idea what did this?" Dylan asked. "We don't have much time, we need to get moving."
"Sonic weapon broadcasting high-frequency microwaves, disrupting her inner ear functions and therefore her thought processes," Kyle swiftly replied. "Got hit with one of these a few years back—well, from my perspective. I'll tell you about it sometime."
"I think we'd all enjoy that, but for now how do we counter it? And why aren't Tyr or I affected?"
The emerald spectre shook his head. "We never found a countermeasure, not before I left anyway. Getting her out of the weapon's range or destroying it would do the trick, but if retreat's not an option and you don't know where to find the weapon..." he spread his hands in defeat as he trailed off.
"Just perfect," Tyr sighed in exasperation.
"As for you two, I don't know. If these...'Drago-Kazov', right? If they had a device capable of targeting Trance alone, tracking her position..."
"Like a sniper rifle?" Tyr suggested.
The dead man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah...possibly. They'd need a way of locking onto the exact position of Trance, the ring or both though. Alternatively..."
He peered closely at Trance, inclining his head to one side. "Maybe...maybe she hears differently from humans? Her ears are shaped differently, so she might be susceptible to different frequencies or something...? Hell, you'd need to speak to Ray Palmer or someone and he's in another universe so..." He groaned, running his fingers through his tousled hair. "Sorry, best I can do guys."
Dylan gently slung her over his shoulder as they headed off once more. "Great," he growled. "This mission gets better and better."
"The whole fortress has been prepared for our arrival and they've developed a weapon to incapacitate the bearer of our most powerful weapon. Hardly ideal conditions, but I've worked in worse," Tyr observed, hefting his rifle.
"Really?" Dylan looked at him hopefully.
The brawny Nietzschean cocked his head to one side, conceding the point. "I'll admit, in each case I was the only member of my team to survive and all the others were either killed or captured and suffered most unpleasant deaths."
"I've got an idea."
The statement came out of nowhere.
Dylan turned to face Kyle, staring in confusion at the dead man. "I thought you said you didn't know a way to counter this."
"I don't. What I do know is how to take out whatever's causing this. If you or Tyr tried using the ring, all they'd have to do is target you guys instead—if they can generate multiple frequencies simultaneously, all three of you will be out for the count. But if you have a ringbearer who doesn't have a physical inner ear to get messed up..."
"You want the ring back," Dylan realised.
Kyle shook his head. "I'm dead, remember? I wouldn't be able to retain physical form long enough. My time as Green Lantern ended when I died, Captain Hunt. And at the risk of sounding arrogant, I've got nothing to prove in any case. Besides," and here he grinned knowingly, "Trance told me the plan, and I think we could pull this off with a slight modification to it."
Dylan grinned wildly at him. "Enlighten me?"
Kyle told him.
Dylan stopped dead in his tracks, and nodded. Tyr nodded, intrigued, as Dylan carefully lay Trance down on the floor and Kyle placed his hand over the power ring.
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"The signal has been received; we have a go," Andromeda announced from the screen.
"Alla-righty. Moving out," Beka grinned as she took them into slipstream.
"Beka, there's been a slight change of plans," Andromeda informed them, a serious expression clouding her hologram's features.
"Define 'slight'," she asked, focussing on the slipstream.
"Trance is down, disabled by a sonic weapon assault. She's unconscious but otherwise fine. However, I—my avatar—am going to be needed on the ground if the mission is to succeed so you won't have a power ring for cover fire. Kyle assures me that Dylan has control of the missile batteries, so hopefully Dylan can fill in."
"Just great," Beka winced as they exited the slipstream.
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An airlock slid silently open and she powered out and away. Glittering explosions limned the star-flecked night of space as a squadron of Drago-Kazov cruisers emerged from cover, engaging Andromeda at range, their attendant fighters swarming the mighty vessel.
Alone, Andromeda would most surely have taken plentiful amounts of damage.
But she was not alone.
A Drago-Kazov fighter pilot, dodging fire from the warship's defensive batteries, was most surprised to see her through his cockpit canopy. So surprised was he, that in the half-second it took her to neatly skewer the fuel tanks of the attack craft, he had barely come to terms with what he had seen.
A human woman, flying in space.
Rommie turned and sped into Acheron's atmosphere even as the fighter erupted in flames, even as fresh detonations blossomed along the flanks and prows of the Dragan cruisers. Dylan, it seemed, had excellent control over the missile batteries.
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Cuchulain snarled under his breath as he led a platoon toward the intruders' location. Although he had back-up plans that could be implemented, he still hated having to lose even temporarily to this High Guard antique and his band of delinquents. He shut off the palm screen, blotting out the view of his squadron being decimated by the missile batteries and the avatar's approach.
He had planned to deal with her and her ring, of course. Just not so early on in the hostilities. He did so hate it when events were out of his control, even only slightly.
Fortunately, of the two ringbearers she was the one he feared the least. According to Carmagnola's data, the rings were powered by will and controlled by imagination—the latter being something that A.I.'s lacked. As an avatar, she was doubtless a most powerful foe in combat, but as a Green Lantern? No, as a Lantern the purple one was decidedly more creative—and more dangerous.
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Dylan grimaced as he desperately tapped commands into his wrist monitor, feeding targeting data to the missile batteries.
High above them, between Andromeda and the missile batteries, the Dragan squadron was being massacred. Three cruisers had limped from the battlefield having sustained punishing amounts of damage and an expanding cloud of debris marked the final resting place of two others. The fighters were taking heavy casualties as well.
Down here, everything was going all the way to Canto Thirty-Four of Dant's Inferno. Indeed, he would have been most unsurprised to encounter Cocytus and his captives—Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius—before the day was out.
Sheltered as poorly as they were in a small corridor recess, Tyr was gamely picking off Dragan troops as best he could, Kyle aiding him in providing diversions. Once again, a flurry of gauss rounds tore through the emerald spectre's form; once again Tyr's rifle spoke in anger against the fresh soldiers and bade them be silent.
He glanced down at where they'd propped Trance up against the wall as comfortably as possible, where he now shielded her with his own body. Kyle, using a connection that was possible through the ring, had told them that although she was unconscious, she was experiencing a great deal of pain.
He hated to see her like this. Defeated, helpless and powerless. For half a year now, she had borne power enough to destroy entire solar systems and had used it wisely, carefully. She had seemed to grow more confident, and although he believed her to be pacifistic at heart, she was willing to do whatever it truly took to succeed. Before, she had been a mystery, an unknown quantity to him, someone he barely knew. Now, if truth be told, he regarded her as a good friend, someone he could trust just as well as Beka or Rommie to hold things together without his help.
Things were not going the way he'd planned.
Come on Rommie, don't let me down.
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Defence turrets tracked her descent the whole way down, incessantly firing ordnance that would have ripped through even her ship-self's hull inside of the first minute.
Smart munitions exploded on impact with her. Rommie ignored them completely. The ring could deal with such weapons with ease, and she couldn't afford the time needed to intercept the weapons or destroy the turrets.
A glittering beam blazed forth, brighter than the sun, effortlessly tearing into the ancient bedrock.
In a shower of sparks and rubble, she was inside.
A few Dragan troops were caught unawares, little suspecting that this narrow maintenance corridor would one day be invaded. Before they could so much as draw their weapons, she effortlessly cut them down in a shower of vermilion effectors from her force lance.
In a shower of silver droplets, she blazed her way through the walls, cutting a direct path to her objective.
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Cuchulain imperceptibly gritted his teeth as reports came in as to the avatar's attack. He had prepared to eliminate her as she contacted the rest of her group, but it seemed she was not following such a course of action.
He swore violently into a comm unit at one of his officers, ordering the incompetent oaf to intercept her. He sighed in exasperation as he turned back to the battle at hand, deactivating the comm and drawing his sidearm as a force lance effector gouged a hole in the wall beside his head.
"Hunt?!" he roared over the noise of gunfire. "We should talk, you and I!"
"Oh? And why—" Cuchulain instinctively ducked as another effector hit the wall where his head had been a scant second earlier. "—would we need to do that?!"
Cuchulain sighed audibly as he rose, carefully placing his shots as calmly and patiently as though he were on a target range. "This doesn't have to happen, Hunt! None of it! All I want is Tyr Anasazi and what he stole from Enga's Redoubt."
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A heavily-reinforced door rocketed from the force of a powerful kick that ripped it from its frame, and the Dragan troops on guard duty within rushed into firing positions, weapons already to their shoulders.
A slender petit human woman calmly strode through, a ring upon her hand crackling with emerald energies. A kludge!—a mere kludge dared enter the core room!
Without a second's hesitation, they opened fire on the impudent intruder.
Within a few seconds, it was all over.
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Tyr could feel Dylan's icy stare boring into the back of his neck even as he cut down a trio of Dragan troops. Unfortunately Cuchulain, his intended target, had ducked down out of sight again a second too early.
"He's lying," he casually stated. "He doesn't just want me, he wants the ring as well."
"Well they're not gonna get it," Kyle growled even as the former mercenary dove for cover once more. "We can't afford to let them anywhere near it."
"I agree," Dylan added, tapping instructions into his wrist monitor and destroying another cruiser. "Do you have something to tell me Tyr?"
He shrugged. "At the first moment when we don't have Drago-Kazov soldiery attempting to kill us, certainly."
Dylan sighed in exasperation and relief as he saw the final pair of Dragan cruisers withdrawing with heavy damage, two of their sister vessels destroyed by fire from Andromeda. "I'm going to hold you to that."
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Rommie stepped over the still-smoking corpse of one of the Dragan troops. Creating a simulacrum of the Tweedles had been a simplistic, but undeniably effective technique.
She grimaced briefly at a particularly unpleasant thought as she placed her hand against the data core and battered her way through the Dragans' defences with almost ridiculous ease. When Kyle had told them all that the new ring would accept her as its wielder if she wanted it, she had been hesitant.
She had not feared being corrupted by such power—although the ring was indeed more powerful than her ship-self, loaded with Nova bombs as she was, she believed she would not fall prey to such weaknesses. Her concerns had been based on an entirely different matter indeed.
Imagination.
Of all the many qualities that she'd been created with, the ability to daydream and imagine things that simply were not true was something that had not been heavily emphasised. Kyle Rayner had been an artist with a highly active imagination—indeed, through sheer willpower he had managed to remain solid long enough to complete several pieces of artwork. And Trance, it seemed, had a highly active imagination of her own.
Did this detract from her as a living being? The thought weighed heavily on her as she grew tired of grappling with the security system, focussed her mind and destroyed it completely.
Oh no you don't, she smiled within the matrix. The dying program had tried in one last desperate attempt to fool her into thinking some of the data was part of its coding, to goad her into destroying that particular file. She snorted; she was nowhere near gullible enough to fall for that old trick.
She pried open the file, and beamed as she examined the contents, swiftly removing it from the core even as she scanned the rest of its interior for any links to it.
Finding none, she surfaced once more in the physical realm. Objective completed.
She now possessed all the information that the Drago-Kazov had gathered concerning the Eagle's Eyrie. She smiled triumphantly as she flexed her mind—
—a glowing green battering ram pulverised the core.
She raised a slender eyebrow in curiosity as she stared at her ring whilst running through her memories of that second.
Hmm. Most curious.
Perhaps, she mused as she flew from the core room and homed in on Trance's ring and Dylan's sub-vocal transmitter, the trick isn't to plan it. Spontaneity?
Spontaneity she could do.
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Cuchulain grinned as he received the transmission. It seemed that the avatar had lost her concentration at precisely the wrong time. In this case, the wrong time being when a heavy volley of gauss rounds were headed her way.
"Hunt! You really should consider negotiation! You think the Kodiak is your friend—but you forget!" He paused to empty his sidearm's clip into the direction of the force lance effectors, then dropped back into the shelter of the support beam. "He's a Nietzschean, Hunt! First and foremost, he will always be a Nietzschean! And he'll betray your trust whenever it suits him!"
"So why the hell should I trust you, Cuchulain?!" the High Guard officer returned angrily.
The Fleet Marshal laughed. "You shouldn't! But if you want to leave alive, you only need to turn over the Kodiak. And I wouldn't count on your robot to save your hide either!"
Out of sight, Dylan grinned to himself. Rommie had only just contacted him, with news of the data's capture, and had explained her deception.
She had also given him an estimate of when she should arrive. An ETA that should be ended any. Second. No—
He leapt out from cover, blasting away, as the wall directly behind Cuchulain's blocking team exploded inwards, emerald beams piercing Dragan troops effortlessly.
An effector clipped Cuchulain, and the Fleet Marshal stumbled, going down with a welter of blood arcing from his shoulder.
He extended the lance as Tyr rained fiery doom into the ranks of the squad covering their other flank, turning to charge the position. An old Lancer battlecry burst forth from his lips, and fires raging in his heart he stormed their temporary emplacement. The lance's muzzle snapped back and forth spitting effectors, and he was lost in the primal song of battle.
At length, he recovered to find Rommie staring down at him in concern. Dragan corpses lay all about.
Cuchulain was gone.
"Dylan? Are you alright?"
He rose, shakily, using the force lance to aid him. "Yeah." He licked his lips as adrenaline deserted his bloodstream. "Let's get outta here."
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Cuchulain grimaced as he found himself back in his office, and tested his newly-healed shoulder. It was not often he needed assistance like that.
He also knew that the Scipio Pride never forgot those who owed it debts.
He sighed and summoned an aide. It was time to execute the second phase.
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Elsewhere..."He needs to speak with you," the youth calmly announced as he joined the beshadowed figure upon his lofty mountaintop perch.
"He has a mission for me?"
"He needs you to see him at a specific point in time."
"To what purpose?"
The younger man looked solemn. "He is near death. He needs you to know something—he wouldn't say what, at least not me or my counterpart. He said that he'd told you 'when' some time ago."
The shadow nodded sadly. "To England, then."
"To England," the youth agreed. "To war. To wrath. To the end."
A single tear slipped onto the rock beneath their feet. "To the end."
With that, they were no more. The little droplet of moisture froze in the arid climate, and in time was cleaned away with a fresh fall of snow the next day.
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