LibriumArcana.Games

The Machine is strong. We must purge the weak, hated flesh and replace it with the blessed purity of metal. Only through permanence can we truly triumph, only through the Machine can we find victory. Punish the flesh! Iron in mind and body! Hail the Machine!

Fade in...
The following Sunday morning.
(Everyone is now on the same timeline)

Breakfast was being made as shadow tendrils moved about the kitchen, stirring and chopping and breaking eggs delicately as Li Na hummed happily along to the music coming from her iPod. Bacon, eggs and pancakes were on the menu this morning, in quantities meant for an army.

The happiness was almost contagious as her empathy reflected her emotions around the house. Why shouldn't she be happy? Tachyon had moved into the Master Bedroom with her, Blast took over the Blue Room vacated by Tachy, Hotfoot now had the Green Room to himself, and Alexander was in the White. Hydro seemed happy outside, roaming the pool and the grounds (Li Na thought he was studying the plants and trees planted there). She could almost forget Gravitas down in the basement, inside the crystal cocoon.

Thus, she could almost be forgiven for dancing to her music as she worked singing along slightly off-key. "~....... Dug my key into the sides of his pretty-lil-souped-up 4-wheel-drive, Carved my name into his leather seeeatsss! Took a louville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all 4 tires.... baby next time he'll think before he cheats....~"

The last week had been...uneventful for Saibot.

After the last two killings in Millennium City, during the recruitment of Ghost to the group, Saibot had lain low, until Ghost could arrange for his own disappearence.

Saibot had decided to drive across country, instead of flying (which would have taken a lot less time), and the two made their way back to Nevada, deep within the deserts which made up the state. It didn't take long to get back to the bunker which was, for now, his home and base of operations. Sparse furnished as it was, a few rooms of the living area outfitted, the computers and satellite link ups back operational, and the mini-fission plant at full power, meant they weren't uncomfortable.

"Find a room, stow your stuff. We will be heading back to MC by the time your leave is over. Until then, We're going to train you in how to use that ring."

Garth didn't reveal all his plans yet to Ghost, truth be told, even he didn't know what they were yet. Just to continue the work...to protect humanity from the threats they couldn't protect themselves from.

To hell with what Kyosuke wanted....

As Ghost disappeared to find his own quarters from the furnished living spaces, he disappeared into the control center, sat in a chair infront of the computers, and began a search.

There were questions he needed answers to still. For one, he visited his former home in MC....then fire blasted ruins of his old apartment building and Little Italy. He vowed he'd find out who destroyed that place, and take revenge.... Now it was just to find out who it was.

The image on the computer screen flickered for a moment, turning from the the image of a security camera, to the shadow covered image of a man in a dark room.

"Your funds runs low.....why should I continue to assist you? What is in it for me?"

Garth watched the screen for a few moments, silent, before grunting, "I'll remember you in the future..."

The shadowy figure seemed to lean back in it's chair, steepling it's fingers before it, "Name the subject..."

"Project: Guardian."

"Project: Guardian eh?....expensive...."

"You'll get your fee."

"Very well, I'll contact you in five days. Database Out."

The screen flickered back to the security feed, and Garth closed his eyes, before swinging out of the chair, and moving out of the command center, and to his own room.

The intervening week had been... interesting, to say the least.

Hydro had judged it an improvident moment to begin asking questions when they had... disposed... of the body of the Metafleshbeast Legacies, but the days that followed it contained far more opportunity for information and assessment than any that had preceeded. Hydro had spent the majority of it in the botanical gardens that encircled the dwellings, having appointed himself caretaker of the estate (largely without telling anyone) as a means to examine the intricacies of the irigation system that had been constructed therin...

... he did so from the inside.

The "pool", if that was the term, was certainly conveniant, a reservoir of water oh-hand at need for him to use apparently without limit. He did not draw so much as to be noticeable, and it was surprisingly enjoyable to simply be able to release his own water into it and... 'relax' (he thought that was the term. What he could not figure out was why the flesh beasts chose to do the same thing, immersing their solid bodies in water, when they knew well the danger of drowning. The first time someone else entered the pool, Hydro had assumed it was an accidental fall, and had bodily pitched them out of it, only to be informed that the flesh beasts apparently immersed themselves for recreational purposes. It was beyond him as to why they did this (something about being 'weightless'), but they had a very strange series of practiced movements for navigating themselves in a liquid surrounding. They called it... 'swimming'.

His trips inside the dwelling had been infrequent, though he had thoroughly explored the plumbing system of the building, and found it... adequate, even if improvements could be made. He had to continually remind himself that the system in question was for the convenience of the flesh beasts, not the water, but even so, it was plain that some hydrodynamic thought had gone into it. When he did enter the building in a more... normal fashion, he was certain not to lave a watery residue behind, as that appeared to cause unsightly damage to some of the tactile floor coverings that the flesh beasts enjoyed flinging about everywhere. There was some sort of significance to them that still eluded him, but he was confident the mystery would be cracked soon enough.

This morning (a vestigial mode of time distinction he had picked up, tied to solar cycles, of all things), he was on his way to examine how one of the rosemary plants he had been seeing to was doing, when he caught the sound of Argent vocalizing words that did not make sense in a... tone... of some sort... that was unusual. A flesh beast could not have heard it from where he was, on the opposite side of the building and outdoors, but sound moved through water better than air, and Hydro's hearing was consequently very acute. Accordingly, he stopped, turned around, and moved back around the house to the 'kitchen', where the flesh beasts customarily prepared their nutriments, a matter of great cultural and artistic significance, he knew, but one he had yet to decipher.

"Forgive me," he said, a very customary greeting for Hydro, "but... were you discussing an object that has already been destroyed, or one that remains to be so? And... for what transgression was or is this to be done? Was there a circumstance by which someone here has... 'cheated'?"

Nothing like a large body of water poking his 'head' up over the kitchen counter to break a person's concentration. Li Na had only herself to blame for not hearing him, as she'd been dancing to the music as well as singing (slightly offkey).

After catching the eggs that were about to fall due to her startlement, she pulled the earbuds out of her ears, turned off the iPod, and looked to Hydro. "Sorry... I had music playing... what did you want, Hydro?"

Hydro had heard no music playing, but he could pick up very soft sounds emanating from the devices Argent had removed from her ears, which when placed in the hearing apparatuses, would be naturally amplified. Intriguing.

"You... were speaking of inflicting damage upon an object in retaliation for a slight of some sort," he explained. "I... merely wished to know the circumstances by which another was... 'cheating'?"

Why did Hydro always ask her the -hard- questions?

"First, Hydro.. I was singing," Buddha give her patience and wisdom for this, cause she had a feeling it was going to be a looong explaination. "Before you ask.. singing is something most humans do, because it sounds pleasing and tugs on our emotions." Yeah, she was leaving out 10 other reasons to sing. He could ask someone else about that.

"Some songs are happy, some songs are sad, some are funny, and this one is about getting revenge." Well, it was. "Most are -not- about real people, just situations that humans can relate to, or have experienced themselves. Are you with me so far?"

"Fascinating..." said Hydro in his most Vulcan of voices, not that he would have known what that was. "So then... you were merely reciting in verse the tale of some other flesh beast, fictional or otherwise, who was "cheated", and who retaliated through the destruction of objects with four wheels?"

He seemed to get the basic idea. "Well, yes," Li Na answered, then elaborated further. "The woman was in a relationship with the man she's signing about. When she discovered him cheating ... which is a slang term for trying to attract a new woman, usually without the first woman's knowledge ... she got angry and retaliated by attacking his favorite possession, his vehicle."

She was actually getting pretty good at speaking Hydro's 'language' after a week of his questions around the house. She was just happy he'd not started asking about her and Tachyon's relationship.

The crystal pulsated quietly. In the greenish glow, the laptop worked away the days that had passed. It monitored the chrysalis at all times, and anyone curious enough to investigate it would see two windows open and relevent to it. One was constant medical data, which suggested a coma or hibernation like state, as the other was full of apparent spiritual gibberish, disjointed and without coherence in the sentence fragments spat out.

Other windows were open, some obscuring others. Stock transactions moved thanks to an automated program; not much profit, but the income overall was funneled into accounts that the rest of the now exiled Mirage team could access. Certain to be amusing when they got their bank statements citing deposits.

But mostly, the Aberrant slumbered. Beyond time and space, he dreamed of things that few could comprehend...

"I see..." said Hydro, mulling this over a moment. "Is that a... common form of retaliation among flesh beast social circles, for such er... occurrences? Is it considered a social stigma to seek the attraction of another mate without the knowledge of the original one?"

"Songs exaggerate," Li Na answered with a sigh. "Some songs have the cheater killed for their betrayal of trust, or other bad luck hitting them. The ideal is two people as an exclusive pair. However... we are often attracted to others, so cheating happens."

Like how she was still attracted to Blackheart. It was still a rather prickly situation to her, getting dumped that hard. But she pushed those thoughts away, as it wouldn't help how Blackheart felt about the situation. Besides, Elias was showing her many things.

"Either way, the stigma for a man is more about getting -caught- having more than one woman" Li Na's voice was a bit scornful as she spoke. "Some cultures even encourage men to have more than one woman, seeing it as a sign of power and wealth. However, if a -woman- cheats, men get far more upset. Some cultures, usually the same who allow men to have multiple women, will kill a woman for just the suspicion of having sex with someone not their ... mate."

Breakfast was ready, although if they wanted something other than scrambled eggs Li Na felt they could make it themselves. "Before you ask, Hydro, no, I don't know or understand that part, other than to say women have been seen as 'lesser' for centuries. Weaker, smaller, bearer of children, so many cultures decided women were in need of protection, guidance, guarding. Many even think we're of lesser intelligence than men, so we need saving from ourselves." The words were biting, as a few old annoyances in her past cropped to the surface, where a few allies had been more than a little insulting about her sex.

The lecture was somewhat more... detailed... than he had anticipated.

To be perfectly honest, it had taken Hydro an enormous amount of time to learn how to distinguish at all between the male and female flesh beast. Once one knew the anatomical differences, then it was fairly easy to figure out, but before that, he had simply been unable.

"That's... strange..." he said almost whimsically. "For... the majority of animalian life... it quite the opposite, or so I believe. Many insect females are much larger and more carnivorous than the males, to the point of consuming the males during mating. Among mamalian animals it is more... common perhaps to have multiple females to a male, but there is no social stigma attached to the female who engages in relations with multiple males... fascinating..."

He had clearly missed the not-so-hidden bitterness in her words.

"But then, if I may... is the accustomed response to taboo violations of this nature the visiting of violence upon transportation equipment?"

"As I said, Hydro... songs exaggerate," Li Na repeated, putting the pancakes, eggs, and bacon on the counter in covered serving plates. "Actually doing that to someone's vehicle, or killing them outright would get the police after you. So, a song is a safe outlet, just as movies, video games, and television shows are a safe outlet," *THAT* conversation had been a doozy, trying to explain that what was on TV wasn't real. "Also, by exaggerating, the song adds a touch of dark humor to the whole idea, making it amusing that a woman would go that far to get back at the man."

"But now," she said, changing the subject, "Breakfast is ready." To accentuate her point, a shadow tendril reached out and smacked a gong that she'd hung in the bar area, beside the stairs. For years, it'd been a useless knicknack Ember had given her as a joke. Now, with 8 people in the house, it was finally getting use as a call to food.

Time passed as Blackheart knelt, his composite mind drifting. Pieces were coming back to him, dormant flakes of memory recovered and used to help reconstruct the larger whole. Time and space and matter were the beginning, the simplest of things that formed the playground for other forces to interact in accordance with fundamental law and the will of those that could bend and exploit those laws to suit their purposes.

He rose, his hand still on Gravitas's chrysalis. He surveyed the room with alien eyes before putting on his dark glasses and walking up the stairs. Raising Caine had been dealt with, at least temporarily. That left only the government agencies as the target for the covert operations. Kyosuke, Saibot, the rogue AI and the rest didn't require a black team to deal with them. The government agents, which walked through Ultima as if they owned the place, did.

He walked out of the house and down the street, fishing change out of his pocket. It would take a while to go where he wanted, but he had the time. He found a cyber cafe and plugged in, activating encryption programs. He sent a simple email

Taskmaster,

I need to know who is sending expendable meta-agents to walk all over Ultima. Now.

Blackheart.

Ghost set his bag next to the bed, flopping down on it. It had been a long road trip, and it was wonderful to be free of the car. He'd already been off work for a week. He didn't worry about Ultima, they understood that he would need time. THe Agency though, they knew he had been trying to get information on Gazer. They had let him go on leave, but as soon as he got back, the teeps were going to be going for a few walks in his head.

Ghost sighed, stretching again. He still wasn't quite sure why Garth had decided to do a road trip. But he just went with it, and they had worked hard during pitstops, helping Ghost learn to focus and control the ring.

The spook stood, moving out ofh is room and heading to find Garth.

Li Na knew when Blackheart left, but didn't say anything. After nearly an hour, she gave into curiousity and followed him down to the cyber cafe. After a brief mental debate, she chose to enter the cafe like a normal person, shades over her eyes, tight jeans, and a shirt proclaiming "I Break Warranties".

She walked over to Blackheart and took a seat next to him. "You could ask to borrow the car, you know."

He finished unplugging the laptop. "I didn't need to," he replied. "And the exercise was good for me. Too long couped up and the hills make walking more of a workout than it would be otherwise."

Li Na looked down at the laptop, then back up to Blackheart, but didn't ask why he'd needed to come down here to use it. Cafes like this were good for untraceability.

"Hope you got breakfast here," she said instead, rising as he did. "What food's left is already cold. Do you want a lift back?"

"No," he said. "Walking is just fine. I was planning to grab brunch at that Cuban place I passed on the way here."

"Do you mind if I walk with you?"

"Not at all," Blackheart replied. Walking uphill in 'Frisco was par for the course and they soon ended up at the small restaurant. He took a booth at the back and ordered plenty of rice, beans, and burritos. He settled down to munch on some tortilla chip appetizers and wait for his order to arrive. "So, why are you stalking me?"

Although she'd just eaten breakfast, she ordered a drink and a small appetizer for herself, not presuming to snitch from Blackheart's meal. "Why have you been avoiding everyone?" she asked in return. "You're either in your room, or down with ... Mike," there was a hestiation as she recalled the name Gravitas went by.

"You're also still wearing the shades... are your eyes healing properly?" Just because he could see to walk down here didn't mean they were healing correctly.

"I haven't been avoiding everyone," said Blackheart. "I've just been sleeping. And spending a little time with . . . 'Mike'. He'll be fine."

"That's good to hear," she said, taking a bite of her food, washing it down with her drink. "And your eyes?"