The Protocol

         O1.

         Everything inside the starship hummed: the steel plating, terminals and the dozen or so bolted seats. From auxiliary power the hologram platform glowed. A wireframe diagram of Mars and her colonies floated above this conical table, placed at the center of the bridge, where one of five points of interest blinked. The light of the display illuminated a pair who stood close together almost to the point of touching.
         "What's it mean?" said Brent, a tall and bony gentlemen holding his perpetual grin. His choice of attire was the usual casual: a dark jacket, jeans and a large black cap. He kept his hands in his pockets and looked over to where the young woman waited by his side.
         Shik may have then been rolling her eyes though no one could ever quite guess her expressions. A white mask had been fastened over her face allowing her tangle of scarlet hair to droop down below the shoulders. She pointed towards the hologram with her gloved hand and gave a quick glance to her male companion. It did not seem to matter to her that the mask's smooth surface had no openings to allow for sight.
         "The system is on standby," she said. "It's an automatic response after docking."
         "Docking?"
         "We have docked."
         Brent turned on his heels and threw up his hands in an exaggerated motion.
         "It was too quiet!"
         "We're using a Psyche vessel this time. They tend to make better ships."
         A shrug and a sigh later Brent left the map and ascended two steps towards an open hatch.
         Leaning against the wall by the opening was the third member of their little brigade. The right side of his face may well have been seared in a furnace for a hideous scar made him squint almost to the point of closing the eye outright. On the forehead below his dirty blond hairline was the number 21, tattooed crudely over the flesh. This man crossed his arms tight and looked downward at his dark boots. Brent always found himself impressed by Gerald's suit and thought it some sort of top secret military gear. It was a full-body black armor both elastic and light weight. Silver devices of some kind were masterfully woven into the torso. These devices, either circular or rectangular, hummed with an electric current and acted as the focal point of the many wires that spread out over the limbs like artificial nerves. The wires themselves resembled white threads that had been pressed flat against the dark fibers of the outfit.
         Gerald met Brent's look and allowed a smirk.
         "I don't do anything for free," said the blond.
         "What?"
         "Come on, man. If you want me to do something you have to at least throw some candy into the deal."
         Here Shik stepped up beside Brent and locked her faceless stare towards the jokester.
         "There are no negotiations. We've been through this how many times now?"
         "Four," Gerald said.
         "So..."
         "Do I get the candy?"
         "You're getting off now."
         Gerald sauntered over in front of the open doorway.
         "Do you honestly expect me to work for you people? I mean, it's not like I want to die, or my friends for that matter, but this is just too much."
         "It is what lord Vann wills," Shik said monotone.
         "Let's just get this over with," Brent added.
         "What exactly are we doing?" Gerald said. "You never exactly briefed me or anything."
         "It is classified," said Shik.
         "It's a secret," said Brent.
         "That's dumb."
         "Please move," Shik took a step forward. "Let's not play at this again."
         "Or you'll electrocute me?" Gerald said in an exaggerated voice. "Oh, no! More pain! How terrible!"
         "I'm being patient. I'm simply asking you to move aside."
         Gerald thrust his face towards Shik.
         "Kiss my ass."
         "You want me to hurt you that badly?"
         "A slave is a slave. Stop pretending we're in any way equal and just command me."
         The women let a sigh escape before shaking her head subtly. A small moment of silence elapsed where Brent, pulling down his hat close to arching eyebrows, shrugged his broad shoulders.
         “Gerald,” Shik said at last. “Have you ever stopped to consider… Perhaps we are prisoners as well?”
         “You’re prisoners? That why you treat Vann as a deity? Calling her ‘lord’ and all.”
         “Lord Vann does not require loyalty. She rules by limiting her subject’s options to the point that serving her is the only logical choice. You are not the only one with a bomb implanted into your brain. Take, then, a scenario without such a collar ensnaring us: HUB is dying. The human colonies are in their final decade. They simply do not have the knowledge or resources to repair the life-support systems any longer. The Psyche’s hatred of humankind eliminates even the option of migrating to their planet. You’ve seen the genocide there for yourself.
         “There’s not a single leader alive with even the most rudimentary solution. Do you understand, Gerald? Humans are going extinct. We are as infants, utterly dependant on the one and only leader with a solution. That leader is lord Vann. Our kidnapping of you and your friends only perpetuates the realization of that solution. It may seem ghastly. Hell, it is, but the end must justify the means. The end is the continued existence of humankind.”
         “If you people would stop interfering,” Gerald said, “then I’d be able to negotiate with the Psyche. I was on good terms with them in the end.”
         “They are proud and brutish, Gerald. Their cultural hatred of humans cannot be rooted out by a couple of good deeds you may have performed. Even if you convince a few, how long until the cause to eliminate human beings is taken up again? No time at all. Unless, of course, you plan on convincing over five-hundred countries and over a thousand tribes.”
         “We just need to convince the most powerful ones.”
         “The ones that hate each other? If one supports the humans, the other will kill them just to spite their enemy. Open your eyes. A billion human beings have been slain there in the past century. I’m not even sure if there are a thousand left on the surface.”
         Here Gerald clamped his teeth hard together. He had heard most of these arguments before (although not so tightly constructed). He simply could not accept them. Humankind was better off eradicated than serving another moment under Vann—a leader whose deeds surpassed the most inhumane designs imaginable. No, he thought. Humankind would not be eradicated at all. She simply makes them think they need her.
         “We are to rendezvous at the capitol building within the city,” Shik said as if the matter had been resolved. “We may expect hostile natives.”
         “Guess I gotta blow the outer hatch open,” Brent said. “They won’t open it for us, huh?”
         “Yes,” Shik said. “Once inside they may try to take us out. The Protocol’s military strength is above average. It was the central weapons manufacturing culture before the government fell.”
         “That means they’ve been in there without a government for, what, fifty years?”
         “They’ve structured a new government for themselves apart from the other colonies. Still, be aware that members have come before us and cleared out our building. Once there we should encounter minimal resistance.”
         Gerald listened to this with crossed arms. He glanced uninterestedly away from the pair holding a scowl. Having lost himself in his own thoughts the tap to his right arm came as a surprise. Brent held out a bulky silver case towards him and gave a firm nod. Gerald received it with a snide mumble and said “you’re giving me weapons after all this?”
         “A defenseless trainee won’t do.”
         “If I point the gun at the wrong target?”
         “If you do that,” Shik said as she slipped past him, “the one of us left alive will simply have to destroy you.”
         
         O2.

         A thick aura of fog dispersed in the Protocol spaceport, dock station seventeen, where first the figure of Brent emerged holding tight to a handheld device. Sauntering out after the dense air cleared was a slouched Gerald who, should he have had pockets, would doubtlessly put his hands deep in them to complete his bitter demeanor. He now had equipped a belt holding two identical pistols of a refined white metal. On his back, loosely tied, rested a long blade of similar color, its width on the sides a good ten centimeters, the height a little shorter than a typical double handed sword of the now extinct Ap. The weapon had been procured on accident from an underground and forgotten database center on the Psyche planet. It was rumored by more than a few drunken regulars to be of god’s own make by which Gerald assumed they meant Vann, and spat at the thought. The Oorilox—the name engraved upon the hilt—did more than normal swords of primitive eras. Indeed, it had three miniature rocket boosters gladly providing first degree burns to the inexperienced. Gerald’s gauntlets were in effect an extinction of the Oorilox. The red and armored gloves communicated with the blade’s homing network allowing retrieval of the weapon from long distances.
         Coming from the “Chigun bloodline,” a term applied to those of Pluto’s lineage or, to put more simply, persons with blood cunning allowing increased stamina and strength, Gerald often found the sword of equal use as the bullet. In this instant he took the thing from his back and flipped a switch on its underside that woke it to life. The interior of the place was dark. Green plated walls held signs in the common Martian tongue covered over by a thick layer of dust. Only one of the ten or so bulbs installed around the ceiling was operational and a garbage can of sorts had been toppled, its rotten or faded contents spilled forth before the open doorway leading out.
         “I’m going on ahead,” Gerald said glancing back at the demolition specialist. “That damn woman is taking too long.”
         Brent nodded.
         “She had to go to the bathroom.”
         “What?”
         “Whaddya mean what? It’s the phenomenon, see, where humans who—”
         “I’m going ahead,” Gerald said again. “You can try and stop me, if you can.”
         “We’ll find you soon enough, I suspect. Go on.”
         The adjacent hall connecting from the dock was equally cruel to the vision. Squinting his good eye, Gerald made out a few rectangular silhouettes on the stained blue carpeting. Then there erupted a cry of a hundred voices. Overhead lamps flashed on while people young and old in crude leather tumbled out behind bright yellow crates. Every kind of weapon was present: pistols, machine guns, grenades, long-ranged rifles, daggers, stones and one particular boy holding a photograph over his brown head as if ready to throw. Instinct overtook Gerald. Hurling his sword well over the head of the aggressors he evaded leftward moments before a first wave of bullets—and thousands of bullets there were—pulsed into the wall and doorway back towards Brent. Damn it, Gerald thought as his suit began adjusting a few silver mechanisms on its own. The man’s arms and leg muscles appeared to augment twofold.  They aren’t my enemy. I can’t get caught up in this. Before the congregation could recalibrate their aim Gerald sped forth at an incalculable velocity, bending his knees and leaping over the people like a bird in flight.  He came to a rolling landing by his sword, itself resting before another open doorway. Gerald scooped it up and slipped forth into a great chamber.
         This spacious lobby of the starport had a domed ceiling five stories overhead. A circular though aged reception desk acted as the center focal point, the carpet a more sanitary blue and the curving silver wall housing closed metal doors pressed side by side. North of Gerald there beckoned a wall made of segmented glass looking out into a dark night. The double-doors at the bottom was ajar. More attackers crawled from various hiding places wasting no time in popping deafening shots towards the intruder. Unfortunately for them Gerald had already made it over half the distance to the exit and, by the time the first man of the rioters realized what the blur was passing by his sight, let their quarry escape.
         Outside proved unfathomably cold, the colossal building of the starport resting on dried soil likely placed by the colonists centuries before. Gerald kept speeding away without thought of looking back. He instinctively bent his head to view a brilliant look into outer space. Above, beyond the glass layer miles high, smiled down the dim disk of Mars flanked by countless twinkling dots. Training his sights ahead brought notice to the city. Truly it was remarkable that so many skyscrapers and modern buildings could fit inside an artificial environment, though one had to note how many were without electricity, the scene looking like a few shining structures surrounded by mere shadows. While observation continued Gerald grew surprised seeing more lights from a variety of windows flip on, and then dumbfounded by a hissing alarm that reverberated the entire biosphere.
         He slowed his pace to a mere walk on reaching the metropolis’ outskirts. There he saw a road cutting between shoddy houses of warped steel. They had broken windows and trash for yards. The road itself would better be classified as ground up asphalt riddled with countless webbed cracks and potholes.  The alarm’s percussion began to bounce in Gerald’s head making him dizzy. Then, from the depths of the darkness came a mechanical monster. Its form was that of a giant angel humming as it hovered along, its so-called wings housing dozens of weapons and its head covered with multicolored lights. It had four mechanized arms stemming from the armored torso with bizarre tools of torture: a cooked sword, a grinder much like on a blender, an electrified rail gun and long-bladed scissors colored with rust. From above the stars were obscured for mere instances signifying additional security, the number of such robots Gerald thought to be greater than the stars themselves.
         “I’m not with them,” Gerald began by shouting. “I’m not one of Vann’s twenty.”
         This only incited anger on the part of the machine. Two hatches near the head popped open releasing a firework show’s worth of screaming missiles. It simultaneously charged the rail gun and produced two already-spinning Vulcan cannons, bawling meaningless commands over a loudspeaker. Gerald’s armor adjusted more silver mechanisms, the suit releasing a spray of condensed and hissing steam from the joints. Gerald started by launching the Oorilox in a spinning arc—boosters initiated—following with a tremendous jump into the freezing sky. Before hitting ground on a rooftop at the machine’s right Gerald whipped out a pistol, releasing bullets as fast as his finger could squeeze. It was no use. The angel turned to meet its foe releasing a furious blast of pure electricity connecting to Gerald’s very heart. Blown back over numerous rooftops he came to a rolling stop on his back some three streets down.
         The black armor buzzed in Gerald’s ear informing him that it had to restart his heart three times over the course of five seconds. It began turning the knobs of the torso rapidly accompanied with still more steam. Gerald tried and failed to rise. The veins of his face bulged and a warm feeling encompassed him, knowing the suit had injected some substance or other into his bloodstream. As if a barricade had been pushed aside movement came easily and without pain. He got up only to find an armored vehicle howling towards his location. It skidded to a sudden halt releasing the smell of burning rubber into the air. The back hatch popped open allowing a dozen heavily armed men with vests and helmets to pour out. Without preamble more shots were fired. This time two made contact with his limbs while he sprinted away, shouting.
         “Puncture wound detected,” said the armor. “Fragmented bullet lodged in origin sinister posterior brachioradialis. Puncture wound detected,” it insisted on repeating. “Fragmented bullet lodged in origin dexter anterior flexor carpi radialis.” In laymen terms the stupid thing informed a contact with the back left thigh and right front forearm, the bullets shattering in the body instead of passing through. This would only be relevant later, Gerald thought, seeing as how there remained little pain and the suit itself could substitute what energy his own muscles failed to perform. Needless to say the new war grew irksome to the man who even now considered fighting to kill rather than fruitless evasion. During this thought the machine from before, hovering high above and descending on his location, drew rapidly near. Its left side had been damaged. Coils of wires poured forth from a shattered wing. It seemed the Oorilox had done some eventful damage.
         An explosive rumble from far to the man's northeast revealed a long range missile barreling closer. Meanwhile, the hovering security robot let off a rain of fatal shots from the one operating Vulcan. Then, at the same time, the infantry from before closed in ready to finish what they started. Surrounded by these threats Gerald cast up his right arm (albeit slower than usual) pressing his thumb on a pressure point upon the gauntlet. His other arm slipped out a gun to fire at the incoming projectile. The missile got pegged a good quarter mile away, the Vulcan fire missing the cunning by the smallest margin from his quick steps. Finally the Oorilox came into view spinning wildly with boosters flaring blue fire. The hilt met Gerald's hand perfectly and the propulsion made him twist his body halfway round in order to gain mastery over it. Thus equipped, Gerald stormed in the direction of the infantry with fury bubbling up from the bottom of his being. The men actually stopped in their fire from surprise. Backing away in unison they proved far too slow. Gerald began by bringing the white blade down on the one closest to the front, cleaving flesh and bone in a shower of sickening red mist. Electric sparks coughed from Gerald's ever expanding arms, his face reflecting a cruel scowl of rage. Bringing the sword to a horizontal level at the middle of his body Gerald continued the attack slashing wide and far with the same raw power. Three human bodies severed apart and effectively paint Gerald's suit and face a dark red.
         Four dead bodies were enough to shake the nerves of the inexperienced militia. The remainder retreated away as Gerald flipped around to deflect a stream of the Vulcan’s pellets with the gauntlets and blade, shooting with the still equipped pistol for the angel’s shining head. The machine becomes disoriented wobbling to and fro through the black sky. Then, as if some vulnerable point had been pierced, it exploded in a brilliant and pulsing ball of flame. The aura of the fireball projects daylight to the dull houses, the sound penetrating beyond comfort.
         Gerald lowered his arms from his instinctual protection to find Brent and Shik strolling casually around the falling debris. Only then does he notice the putrid odor of the bodies and the heavy rumble of the ground as the robot’s larger pieces smash against the street. He tried his best to check his heavy breathing heaving from tired lungs, still holding his pistol ready as the pair converge five paces ahead. The woman spoke first.
         “We’re going to the capitol building.”
          “Damn,” Gerald said looking behind him and above for any new threat. “Damn.”
         “Get your head together,” said Shik. “There’s a standard procedure for this kind of thing.”
         “Go away,” Gerald said with drool dripping from his trembling lips.
         “Lower the gun, Gerald.”
         The black suit, perhaps divining the danger was now averted, began twisting silver knobs and decreasing the muscle mass of Gerald’s limbs. Then a sudden drop in energy forced Gerald’s knees to buckle as he fell face first onto the damaged asphalt, both sword and gun scattering from his grip. There was a sigh and mumble from the two witnesses.
         “You carry him,” said Shik to her companion. “We have no time to waste.”

         O3.

         The capital structure previously housing the official government of Protocol stood now as an intimidating symbol on a steep plateau west of the city. Its base was a mountain of sorts likely constructed using artificial rock. The building itself spanned ten times that of the standard home, its height three stories. Below it at both sides was a pair of small power plants, to its back an outdated radio station and on its roof three antenna towers. The fortification would be near inaccessible to those without Vann’s specialized chip inserted into the cerebellum. Those without were shot down by one of a myriad security turrets. Acting as testament to this fact was the many cracked and broken skeletons littering the climb towards the main doorway.
         It should be noted that to the east of the metropolis was another such construct, equally used in prosperous times to govern, but now represented the resistance of the perceived dictator and home of the highly unorganized leadership. Its queen, named Zukin, had become privy to the intrusion by their most hated enemy. Her actions were left for time to tell.
         The lights flashed on the second floor in a room lavishly decorated to the most expensive tastes. Gold vases on marble stools oddly complimented the smooth crystal-like walls, the spacious room carpeted with a curious black and red pattern. A row of windows watched over the dark mass of the city. It was a depressing contrast to the bright homely chamber where wide recliners circled around thin rectangular tables, the place warming by degrees with the quiet hum of an unseen heater. Opposite of the windows and to the right led to a bedroom, to the left a kitchen, and in between the hall which led to the stairway. It was through this hallway that the three members of Vann’s twenty entered.
         Brent laid Gerald out flat on his back near the corner. The young man, on being released, immediately jolted to life. He sat up and let out a long sigh. Clasping the hideous scar he spotted first the demolition expert, then the woman, asking in a humbled tone if they had any pain medication.
         “You won’t know pain until you take that off,” Shik said with her back turned.
         “I know,” Gerald replied. “It’s not the first time, you know.”
         “We’ll have to patch him up, right?” Brent said. “Can’t train a lout if he’s gonna die.”
         “Naturally medical supplies and other provisions were provided in advance,” Shik said immediately withdrawing down the hall and out of sight. Brent gave a shrug, one he often gave, and told Gerald to remove the suit.
         “Now?”
         “She’s quick. You should be, too.”
         Gerald got up to a steady footing and cursed outwardly.
         “Just wait a little while longer, eh?”
         “C’mon, man.”
         “No, really. Too much pain at once is known to kill people. I should take something first.”
         “The suit’s already injected it, right?”
         “That’s not good enough. This thing also partially numbs on contact.”
         “Maybe,” Shik said on entering again, “You wouldn’t have to go through this if you weren’t so stupid.”
         She had in her arms a bulky grey case, a couple of syringes and basic surgical tools. Gerald backed away at the thought of being doctored by a lady with a mask and then stated his concerns aloud.
         “You don’t need a doctor’s degree to learn by experience,” she replied. “We have to do this type of operation all the time. Isn’t that right?”
         Brent, apparently only figuring out seconds later that he was being referred to, stupidly replied with “You betchya.” He thought it over and appended the statement with “but you always do all the tricky stuff.”
         “It helps to have someone watch me.”
         Brent pulled his hat down over ruffled hair.
         “I do some pretty mean watching.”
         “Enough,” Gerald said. “I can’t tell if you two are flirting or in the process of going insane.”
         Shik laughed dryly and immediately moved to put the medical supplies on the closest recliner. “Do take that thing off, now.”
         “But—“
         “There is no pain medication more powerful than the one already administered to you. If you take another, I can’t say what negative reactions might take place. How many times?”
         “What?”
         “How many times did you get shot?”
         “Twice, I think. In the arm and leg.”
         Shik, with her back turned, stroked at her red hair and seemed to take a glance at Gerald over her shoulder.
         “We had a specific route planned out,” she remonstrated. “We could have dealt with the peasants in the starport and then have gone underground.”
         Gerald rolled his eyes.
         “I’m so sorry. Being a slave to you guys is my top priority. Maybe if you could’a held off on going to the bathroom you’d been able to keep a leash on me.”
         “I suppose you’d enjoy mending your own wounds?”
         “I’ve had worse.”
         “Very well, then.”
         “Wait,” Gerald said. “It’s not like I…”
         “Well?”
         Gerald frowned deep.
         “You can’t expect me to like you just because I need your help.”
         “I’m sure the witch doctors here on Protocol would love to help you.”
         Shik faced Gerald before delicately removing the straps that kept the white mask over her face. It didn’t much concern the man, having little interest in her true face, himself crossing both arms before his chest. She lowered the thing revealing dark brown eyes and the slightest hint of a frown over pale lips. Overall it could be said the face was astoundingly normal in every way, without sign of deformity. Of course, when one could see without the physical structure of the eyes as she could, and further wished to keep identities far from enemies’ knowledge, the mask was a common tool used by Vann’s spirit team, the very same group within the twenty Gerald himself was considered.
         “You think showing me what you look like’s gonna—“
         “Quiet,” she cut Gerald off. “The bickering ends here. We’re here to do a mission—one known to us. Your mission is different. It’s to be trained. Most of that training right now includes obedience.”
         “Bullshit.”
         “Silence. You must accept, as we have, that our roles are directed, that the greater end requires certain individuals to follow as one mind. I don’t like hurting you as punishment for disobedience, but it’s your pain or my head. Can’t you put yourself in that position?”
         “Selfish—“
         “If I were removed from the picture entirely than your disobedience would mean not only your head, but your girlfriend and those Apians you were travelling with. Not another word. Take off the suit and let’s get this over with.”
         Brent pleaded from behind Shik with various hand motions for Gerald’s acceptance. The cunning let out a long grumble and finally, when he thought for sure the woman would lose her temper and begin the electrocution, gave the voice command for the suit’s detachment. The fabric grew flaccid and stretchy, a series of lucid popping sounds preceding a wave of the most intense pain. He let out a heavy scream and collapsed, unsure of whether to cradle the arm, leg or the burning ache of the face. Before he knew it both of his fellows pulled him apart from the suit through the then-massive hole for the head, dragging out the most scarred and ruinous body Shik had ever seen. It would be difficult to find any patch of skin without some blemish or injury, the longer scars still crudely stitched together.
         “Please,” Gerald said as they put him flat on the carpet, blood trickling onto it from his injuries. “Please help me.”
         “My God,” she said.
         “He’s dead already,” Brent said offhanded.
         “We don’t have anything to knock you out totally,” admitted Shik. “I really don’t feel comfortable giving you another tranquilizer just yet.”
         So it began. Through a quarter of the day the operation carried on, first the removal of fragmented shrapnel, disinfection, the stitching, disinfecting again and finally bandaging. Through all of it Shik wore a look of concern and deep concentration. Brent paced around the scene without word, occasionally stopping to look on the body of the patient as if seeing a partially animated corpse. Gerald himself tried his best not to shout and cry. Both came in abundance. When the final hour of the delicate surgery came Shik gave mercy to the man in the form of two fat blue pills. It did not take long for Gerald to pass into sleep.
         Gerald rose from his own body in an astral projected form. His corporal frame had been abandoned for a segment of Spectral. He floated out, able to witness Shik operate on his unconscious self with the same marked determination from the start. It is for this reason alone that Gerald had been chosen for the spirit team. He had lost the ability to dream years before, now thrown into a parallel plane each slumber as no more than an observer, unable to manipulate physical objects. He had grown so familiar with this tedious routine that he did naught but sit Indian-style and oversee the final bandaging with little interest. Shik, knowing full well she was being watched, said to the spirit Gerald, “Just stay put. Don’t go floating around. We don’t know if anyone here can sense you.”
         “What are you talking about?” Brent asked with a twisted face.
         “You really should know the two of us better by now,” sighed the woman.
         “What? We just met that guy.”
         “Never you mind.”
         Appreciating the lack of pain Gerald began amusing himself by floating around the room, occasionally performing summersaults mid-air or kicking through Shik to see if she’d notice. Growing bored of this routine he considered ignoring the warning and finding out what “normal life” was like in the impoverished Mars colony. By the time his real body was being heaved to the bedroom he fell in favor of this plan. Sticking his tongue out towards the spirit woman he darted through one of the windows and soared to the city.
         Around the world shone dark blue. It felt dreadfully lonely as the specter drew close to the nearest neighborhood, the kind of feeling one gets waking in the dark after a nightmare. He sifted across a road in the usual abysmal condition closer to the heart of the community. Every dozen yards had a new half-frozen corpse, the number of broken machines or automobiles littering the space uncountable. A distant skyscraper came to acute focus as a point of possible exploration. Then, just as Gerald prepared to dart for the illuminated tower, the glint of candlelight caught his peripherals. The small house boarded by rubble seemed little better than the others.
         Inside were two: a man in his late twenties and a child of around seven. They both had wrapped themselves in tight blankets of bug-eaten cotton. A large part of the iron floor was dedicated to a makeshift fireplace housing a pathetic flame. Once long ago there had been wallpaper evident from the corners of shredded paper barely attached. The rest of the stuffy chamber was a complete mess. An old-fashioned muffler rested over a pile of motorcycle magazines—only a handful with covers attached—all positioned by small collection of human skulls. These skulls, as Gerald had the fortune of divining from his initial eavesdropping, may very well have been relatives of the pair.
         “They wouldn’t accept it,” said the man with his untamed red beard. “By God no they wouldn’t.”
         The boy wrapped himself tighter.
         “Well,” the man continued. “We’ll go see Zukin on the morrow.”
         “Let’s go out,” said the boy.
         “There isn’t anything left to eat out there, dammit.”
         “I know…”
         Gerald had no knowledge of how food was distributed in the station’s sorry state, though knew from the first such famine was a matter of course.  He stayed there a moment, taking in the two speaking both of the menial and personal matters, beginning already to formulate an idea he knew Shik wouldn’t like. During these thoughts he began hearing the woman’s very voice. The sensation of being touched came to his arm. Then the world ebbed and faded, his physical senses returning in a rapid fashion. Gerald woke up peering up into the masked face of the speaker leaning over his bedside, Brent peeking over from behind. Along with this sight came stinging pain.
         “Isn’t sleeping the best thing for me right now?” Gerald began in a snide tone.
         “We need you to take this,” she said backing up a little and giving a different pill than last time with a clear cup of water. The intolerable light assaulted Gerald while he shakily took the medicine as prescribed.
         “There’s another reason I woke you up.”
         “Eh?”
         She pulled a compact turquoise case from her shirt pocket and snapped it open. Out came a paint brush dripping in gloppy ink. Not allowing the slightest protest she arrested Gerald’s healthy arm and insisted he be still.
         “Perhaps you are not aware that the restorative properties of sleep are far more abundant in its natural form.”
         “Oh, I saw you do that before,” Brent added and leaned his back across the pink walls by a stack of empty shelves.
         “I do it often in spirit form,” she said. “Rarely here.”
         She began by drawing a circle and then what seemed to Gerald a series of random strokes within that circular boundary. More often than not the ink crossed over scars and bruises. Gerald huffed and asked the inevitable question.          
         “I’m making a seal that will prevent your spirit from leaving. Quite simply—“
         “You can’t even give me freedom in my sleep?”
         “Did you miss the part about healing quicker?”
         “Pah! An excuse. I would rather heal slower than be further restricted.”
         “Your obedience training had already begun. You will learn to enjoy dreaming. And if you don’t, you’re still going to deal with.”
         “I’ll go make dinner,” Brent said before Gerald could respond.
         Once alone Shik finished her task. She returned the tools to the box and then the box to her pocket.
         “What did you do before I woke you?” She pried. Gerald turned his face to the wall and pulled the covers up to his ears.
         “I sat cross-legged next to you.”
         “Remember that thing I said to you a few minutes ago?”
         “You said not to float around.”
         “After that.”
         “Not really.”
         Shik sighed. Oddly it came off as relieved.
         “Probably a good thing. But since I knew you weren’t listening, being busy disobeying and all, I felt safe in saying it. Now rest well.”
         The lights went out and the door closed. Nothing but an eerie silence remained.

         The sound of a knock snatched Gerald from yet another patch of dreamless sleep. A tiny lamp came to life from Brent’s turn of its silver knob. He had on a red short sleeved shirt and baggy pants. By his chest he held a plastic bowl full of steaming noodles. Gerald replied on being asked that he wasn’t hungry, insisting that he needed less food than the average person. This did not satisfy Brent who left the plate on the nightstand.
         “Look. Shik’ll be made if you don’t eat.”
         Gerald smirked and sat up against his many pillows.
         “You’re a slave too, huh?”
         “She’s more dedicated, I s’pose.”
         “What’s your story, anyway?”
         “Me?”
         “Yeah. I mean you blow things up, but a lot of people can do that. How’d you wind up under Vann?”
         Pulling down his hat Brent made a face thinking hard for an apt response. His dark eyes wondered from side to side seeming to search for the words floating through space. Finally he allowed a deep breath and returned to his spot against the pink wall. It mirrored his position from a few nights before.
         “I joined ‘cause of her, kind of. We’re both from the Elenor, that’s the second of the five Mars colonies. Big graveyard now. Vann shown up around that time. Before then we’d never heard of her. She had a master back then. His name was Million. The two of them took over the solar system’s government structure quick.”
         “I know Million,” Gerald said. “I helped kill him.”
         “Is that so?”
         “Yup. That’s another story. Do go on.”
         “Well, Shik worked at a bank. I demolished walls in the Martian mines, big surprise, but had been laid off work after the blink.”
         “What’s the blink?”
         “Huh, where do I start? I really though you knew this stuff, man. We had a linked database covering the last five-hundred years. The sum of human knowledge. No one really knows what existed before that time, but we didn’t need to know. With it we could repair and create new colonies using mined materials. Detailed blueprints, plans, maps, diagrams, the works. The thing was so massive, and computers so scarce, that there was really only one database. Even the scraps of backup were destroyed.”
         “All of it destroyed?”
         “Vanished one day. Then experts in any prominent field were found assassinated. We couldn’t even count on the brains of people still alive. Of course written texts went kaput as well. I hear the human population was cut in half during that week. Well, it was Vann’s doing, and the rest you can guess. She sniffed out those with talent and forced them into submission. Most joined without protest. Life was hell and humans plummeting to extinction, so why not?”
         “That’s horrible.”
         “Anyway, Shik says she always had her ghost abilities. Vann figured that out and captured her. I didn’t know her back then but you bet I saw her kidnapping. A bunch of thugs in black, and I gave them a mighty good fight. Unfortunately in the end I wound up being taken along with her. I begged like a pussy in front of Vann herself. They put me in training for a year and a half, taught me how to use some advance technology. It was me and about a hundred other guys. I was the only one alive when they gave out number tattoos.” He pulled down his shirt and tapped the number eight.
         “Damn.”
         “Shik didn’t have it so nice. She never talks about it, but I can guess.”
         “What’s your guess?”
         “Torture. The worst kind of torture imaginable.”
         The conversation died away.  Gerald glanced away clicking his tongue before he began to get out of the covers. Brent tried to stop him, but Gerald wouldn’t hear of it.
         “I want my suit,” he said. “Get it so I can walk on this leg.”
         “But…”
         “I can’t take this monotony anymore. I’d rather shit on myself then stay in this room for another day, assuming I can even count the days. I don’t know how you manage.”
         “Clocks, my boy. Clocks.”
         “Uh huh…”
         “I’ll get your suit if you eat.”
         “Yeah, deal, sure.”
         It took about an hour (Gerald would know for sure if he had one of Brent’s precious clocks) for the suit to be delivered. No sooner had the black marvel been brought in that it was being put on with a great haste. Gerald paused intermittently to cry out with pain. The range of motion required to fit the thing over his head reminded him of those infernal wounds.  Once the fabric had tightened around his muscles the pain ceased to exist. Standing by the messy bed Gerald called Brent back inside. Indeed, the man had been ushered out during the changing process as Gerald had to take off his bedclothes. Otherwise, the suit would not correctly connect with his nervous system. The result would have been a variety of strange or even painful results.
         Instead of Brent, Shik came to the doorway. She had on a black leather jacket and loose pants much similar to her companion, her covered face tilted down towards the carpet. She removed her red hair behind her shoulders and approached the cunning.
         “Don’t say anything,” she said in a commanding tone.
         Gerald obeyed for the moment. She came closer and took a close look at the cunning’s joints in turn, handling his knees and elbows like a merchant appraising delicate merchandise.
         “This’ll do. For our purposes you are healed. We’ll begin.”
         “Begin what?”
         “Shut up. I just told you not to say anything.”
         “Sorry little miss—“
         She shouted a certain command, one hauntingly familiar to Gerald yet still indiscernible from randomly spoken gibberish. A jolt of the most immense pain coursed the man’s nerves from toes to crown. In terms one could understand it felt much like having one’s organs blown out from a shotgun blast. In each instance of such torture Gerald grasped his stomach, his jaw hanging wide open and his eyes rolling to the back of his skull.
         “We’re moving to a new level, Gerald. I’m taking things very seriously from now on. I believe our time to get acquainted is passed. You will become obedient. You will, even if it takes years.”
         “Stop it,” Gerald shouted until his voice cracked. “Stop it.”
         Another command and the pain faded. Gerald crashed to the ground barely holding his body up using his two trembling arms. He focused a bloodshot glower to the woman and bared his teeth.
         “You’re out of your mind if you think I’ll join your fucked up little organization. You’ll need a lot more than that.”
         Shik rested gloved hands on her hips and swung her head to the side. She laughed a little.
         “We’ll just have to blow up the hostages.”
         “Fuck you.”
         Brent had come up to Shik and whispered something into her ear. The tone of the reply was not favorable.
         “Now,” Shik said, “I’ll be nice enough to forgive this entire scene if you do a few minor tasks for me. Just a few things. Then you can rest for the remainder of the day. First, stand up.”
         A fair amount of time went by where Gerald remained stationary. His eyes grew redder from his refusal to blink.
         “Should I blow up Contra’s head first?”
         “How do you know her name?” Gerald shouted with a new fury. “Go ahead, blow her head off.”
         “What was that?”
         “Condemning humanity or the death of someone I love; tough choice, but easy from a logician’s perspective.” These words came in a haunting and passionless tone. The suit began twisting knobs and releasing small puffs of steam as if ready to initiate full combat mode. “Problem for you is I won’t have anything stopping me from cracking your cunt head right open.”
         “You kill me? Why, with a single command I render you a helpless newborn.”
         “Oh. You honestly think pain will stop me? Pain is my entire existence. I’m nothing but a collection of wounds, burns and scars stitched together into an abominable body.”
         “Would you two calm down,” Brent said. He slipped in and tried to get between the arguing pair. Shik pushed the intruder back, commanding through gesture that he stay put.
         “You’re hopeless, Gerald. I’ll leave the electrocution on for, oh, ten or so hours. It can’t kill you. That’s the best part about it.”
         “Goddamn witch.”
         Shik began to chant the gibberish command. A sudden turn of events caught both men by surprise. She stopped mid-speech—looking to and fro as if dazed—retreating three steps to the bedroom’s threshold. There she began to scream a terrified cry at the top of her capacity. Every part of her body trembled. She covered her masked face with scratching hands. Brent joined by Gerald, who himself had gotten up in a jolt, both observing the breakdown of someone known to fear nothing. Yet, indeed, she seemed deathly afraid as if peering ahead to her own black demise. She yelled in that spot until finally darting out of sight. Brent followed with repeated pleas for an explanation.
         It took a moment for Gerald to overcome the aftereffects of his electrocution. When he finally found himself well enough, he snuck into the long rectangular living quarter, managing to slip behind a recliner facing a tiny glass table before being seen. His antagonists were discussing in whispers at the other end, by the hallway that led to the stairwell, their voices just below earshot. The curiosity at the fantastic event spurred his body on. He crawled slow and low with the stealth of a snake. He made it from the rightmost table to the center one without being seen. There he paused and found their words just loud enough to discern.
         “—tremendous,” said Shik.
         “We always have the detonators,” replied Brent, all nonchalant.
         “We don’t, that’s just it.”
         “That ain’t right.”
         “Anyway, keep that thing away from me.”
         “The boy’s all right.”
         “No, weren’t you listening? He’s much more powerful than I ever imagined. We’re powerless. He’s gonna kill me.”
         “Well let’s just get this mission over with and let lady V take ‘em.”
         “Ah! We must not let him known the mission.”
         “I ain’t talkin’.”
         “Gerald isn’t human. I sensed it in him. A demon.”
         The novice snake could take no more of this spiel and decided to return to his room. She’s afraid of me? A demon? Well, whatever. She’s been showed her place. A place far below me!

         O4.

         The next day Gerald woke up with his suit already on. He had since found the Oorilox and both pistols of which Shik had intentionally locked away. This matter didn’t perturb him so much as the annoyance of being kept in ignorance on Vann’s ever-important mission. Sitting upon his unmade bed, the quilt and sheets strewn across the floor, he fashioned his crimson gauntlets tighter while biting chapped lips. His thoughts revolved around the thousands of possible scenarios in which he might direct his energies. One was brute force, taking Shik by the throat and forcing the answer, knowing some fundamental part of her was terrified by his very presence. Another was to coax Brent who himself came off as a halfway reasonable fellow. Then again, Brent also came off as head over heels obsessed with Shik. Gerald figured it was love. A really twisted kind of love, given the circumstances.
         The monotony of remaining in the same place spurred Gerald up now. He prepared himself to receive the woman’s new drivel (doubtlessly including a small speech on obedience and a side of complete denial of her pitiful fright) when he heard a deep, clear voice.
         “They plot to blow up the colony.”
         Gerald gasped and stopped himself from tripping over his boots.
         “Maro Vengene!”
         The one named had been an intimate friend long ago. First thought a Schizophrenic voice, the reality proved the speaker as Vann’s brother, a spirit which passed in Gerald’s very bloodline from generations long forgotten. Maro had left Gerald two years before to commandeer the body of a recently dead soldier, claiming he had retained his energies of old after millennia of dormancy.  Yet in the end his new body was cut down by his now deceased father, Sol.
         “How are you still alive?” Gerald asked mentally, yet nonetheless very forceful.
         “I never left you completely. I needed time for my entire being to return to this berth. Then I had to recuperate to the point of making myself known.”
         “Oh, God. You’re a sight for sore eyes. So much has changed. So incredibly much.”
         “I’m aware.”
         Gerald changed the subject.
         “How do you know?”
         “I know because I can hear better than you can.”
         “Blow up the whole colony?”
         “That’s the plan. That man, Brent, has been setting up bombs in vulnerable points since we got here.”
         “It’s far worse than I ever imagined. How can those bastards…?”
         “Typical manipulation, boy. My brother—well, he’s in a woman’s body now—my sister, Oh, that’s just disgusting to think about…”
         “C’mon, Maro,” Gerald said out loud this time.
         “My sister has them by the balls. Well, one of them has—“
         “You’ve turned into a comedian. Would you please…”
         “My point is that I’m back and I think I can fix your situation. My brother made them train you while he’s away looking for the lost database—excuse me if I refer to my brother as male, it is only natural.”
         “We’ve established that. Go on.”
         “I’ve gleaned this from observation in your subconscious while I recovered these past few years. Vanhorne, on helping you kill his former superior Million, has taken to the solar system where the creation machine was first discovered in hopes of finding a new creation machine. The problem is most of the data from the original civilization that created us, yourself included if you figure your great-great ancestor is such a creation, has been eliminated.”
         “From the blink?”
         “No, my boy, it was a similar database erasure that happened long before the blink. This generation is not even aware of the one I’m referring to. It was around ten-thousand years ago when our archetypes were manufactured. They were superhuman, as we are, able to retain powers and knowledge far surpassing normal humans. Around the same time the Psyche macro technology found its way to the Milky Way, giving humans travel through Spectral. You know, faster than light and all that. The point here is it was precisely this time period that the creation machine was discovered. My brother believes records exist which describe more than one location for these creation machines.”
         “He intends to start a new universal bubble?” Gerald said.
         “Naturally. Vanhorne cannot survive without being hailed as god. Heaven forbid! Coming more to the point, my boy, Vanhorne is now out well beyond Eris, where the poor white dwarf must be near invisible, searching for an abandoned space station that has been lost for ages. Some record still exists which describes how it drifted from its proper orbit. With the right heating apparatus and knowledge it is possible my brother will find what he seeks.”
         “What’s this have to do with Shik and Brent blowing up Protocol?”
         “Simple. He left orders before leaving. He wants you in his army. He knows your power will complete his dominance, which from time to time comes into question even from the meager peasants. The station here is a colony of Vanhorne haters. Thus…”
         “He wants to get me to obey and kill his enemies?”
         “I figure it was an ultimate test. If you would kill a colony of people to save your own life, or the life of Contra and the others, then you would do anything for him. Shik intended to get you to such a point of obedience that you’d willingly aid with the colony’s destruction, ‘even if it took years,’ like she said. Now she’s through with that idea and is just going to do the job as quick as possible. You see, she sensed me as my consciousness began to emerge. She’s terrified of me, not you.”
         Gerald sat back down on the bed and drew in a long breath.
         “Does she know who you are?”
         “Perhaps. I divine from her thoughts that Vann used my distinct spiritual aura along with her torture. She associates me with the hell she experienced. Having separated the painful memories from her mind, sensing me brings those abysmal days pouring into her being as if living the torture all over again. It’s really rather clever. My brother turned her into a detector. She detects me, and if Vann were to return now he’d immediately find out that I have reemerged.”
         Springing up from his spot Gerald paced back and forth with a rapid gait. He stopped by the closed door and leaned against it, his eyelids drooping. He hadn’t slept at all last night.
         “What should I do, Maro? You’ve always had the best plans.”
         “I will outline my thoughts. First, after this conversation, I will have to suppress my presence completely. You will not hear from me again. If she continues to sense me there’s no telling what measures she’ll be driven to. You must evacuate the people of Protocol.”
         “What?”
         “It’s not likely you’ll dissuade either of desisting in their plan, and I doubt you could reach every bomb and dismantle them without being restrained. There is one plan that you just might get them to agree to with enough prompting. Evacuate the people to neighboring colonies. Protocol should have the ships to pull it off with its now pathetic population. Following this, blow the colony up and play dumb when my brother returns. It is not like he bothered to learn the names or faces of any individual here. He’ll believe his enemies have been killed by faithful members of his army, and may buy into your emerging loyalty to his cause. We can come up with a plan for removing the explosives in your brain later.”
         “Will he really not figure out the deception?”
         “It’s the only hope of protecting the people here, Gerald. It’s not perfect.”
         “Suppose I blab this idea to one of my ‘masters’, eh? If they aren’t on board then whole thing goes to hell.”
         “Indeed, which is why you should take measures to make the decision a little easier.”
         “Easier? How?”
         “Find some pretext to wander alone. Run away if you have to. They wouldn’t dare kill you without Vann’s explicit permission. Contact the Protocol government and make the necessary arrangements. Once things are underway, and the people a hair’s length away from being free of this ice-box, they may just wait that extra little bit of time before detonating the bombs. If they don’t, you can probably manage to restrain them for a few hours. After the people are gone they have no choice but to follow the ruse. To admit to Vann that they failed in such a grandiose fashion could well spell their doom.”
         “If Vann finds out about this trick it’s a sure thing.”
         “Listen to me, Gerald! Soon as we’re done here I have an idea. If it goes well you’ll be free from the army and can fight Vann head on. Once we reach that point it won’t matter if Vann figures it out or not.”
         “But the hostages!”
         “You must trust me. I’m leaving now. I hear her approaching your room. It’s your decision from here on out. Good bye.”
         Gerald waited a moment and then mentally asked further questions to the spirit entity. He received silence in return. Thus abandoned by his old comrade, the voice which had accompanied him through his entire childhood into his mid-twenties, Gerald let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. It certainly felt more comforting speaking with the Protocol government, his sworn enemies, than with his self-proclaimed allies. Yet what pretext could set in place his travel across the city alone?
         If I don’t come up with a good reason that bitch’ll keep the electricity on me, thought Gerald. I’ll have to take this slow until seeing an opportunity.
         Pressing his ear against the smooth cool surface of the door he felt the vibration of footsteps. It seemed Shik was merely passing without intention of entering. He stood in that same position for some time until coming upon a sudden idea. Fashioning his weapons Gerald swooped from the bedroom, confident in his steps, spying Shik leaning on the wall to the right of the hall. He came to her after slipping by a few small tables hosting silver humanoid sculptures. She gave a listless stare with a mask-free face, her eyes half-open and cheeks taut in thought. It struck Gerald that she had nothing to say then, even about his pistols strung around his belt or the blade on his back, her face turning away from him in that moment to study a spec on the red and black floor. She seemed rather pathetic slouched in her place with her commanding attitude salved over by a humble silence.
         “I have a request,” Gerald said.
         “What is it?”
         “Remember when you were patching me up?”
         “Of course.”
         “Well I astral projected and saw a starving kid and his father…”
         Shik looked up with a wide, stern stare. She didn’t reply and so Gerald continued.
         “I was wondering, I mean, would it be possible for me to leave for the city in my real body just once? I think I can avoid detection. It’s real close.”
         “Don’t be stupid, Gerald.”
         “We’ve got, like, two year’s supply of canned goods here. Enough to feed tons of people. I just want to send out a package of the stuff. Nothing too elaborate.”
         “We don’t have that much food here.”
         Gerald shrugged, having guessed the quantity.
         “Point is we have enough to spare.”
         “What? You’re not going to ask me about my behavior last night?”
         “I figured you wouldn’t want to talk about it, or something.”
         Shik slammed her eyes shut and kept them that way for the remainder of the conversation, still keeping her head tilted towards Gerald. She smiled a little.
         “I don’t know what to do about you, Gerald. This mission is a lost cause.”
         “Maybe if you let me in on the operation I’d agree with you.”
         “It’s painfully obvious you’d never become obedient in a hundred years. We’ll need more advance techniques…”
         “What, giving up on me so easily? Your lack of faith hurts.”
         “Gerald, if I let you go out you’re just going to rile up the beehive. They’re finally starting to ignore our presence up here. The government can fend for itself. It’s managed for fifty years without busybodies handing out food.”
         “I really, really gotta get the hell out of here. It’s more of a prison than a prison cell.”
         Shik made an exaggerated sigh.
         “Our mission here is going well enough, for what that’s worth.”
         “Oh, I thought it was a lost cause.”
         “I was referring to the mission regarding you.”
         “Does your real mission happen to entail standing around in the same spot?”
         “Please don’t make me angry. I’m not in the mood.”
         “If I get on my hands and knees and begged?”
         “Now you’re just patronizing me.”
         Gerald distanced himself by a step and leaned cross-armed next to the woman, assuming much the same disinterested stance. Figuring he came on a little too strong he bided his time and remained silent. Every moment he felt Shik’s celestial eye drilling into his flesh. He would look over from time to time finding her face still inclined in his direction, with the same mysterious and mischievous smile.
         “Do you mind,” Gerald began, “if I ask you a personal question?”
         “If you’re bored I may be able to find some base amusements in the basement storage.”
         “Sounds fun, I guess, but can I ask you that personal question?”
         “No, but you always have the freedom to ignore me and ask it anyway.”
         Gerald paused to try and wrap his mind around her meaning but soon gave it a rest.
         “Do you care for Brent the way he seems to love you?”
         In honesty Gerald had never confirmed Brent’s feelings one way or the other, but the question simply popped into his head spontaneously.
         “Yes.”
         “What, that’s it? Just ‘yes’?”
         “Too anticlimactic?”
         “I guess so.”
         “The buffoon is too shy,” she said. “He isn’t very bright either.”
         “Pretty harsh.”
         “Well! He doesn’t exhibit any greater knowledge than blowing things up. I had to instruct him on the proper way to turn on a computer about a week before we received you. I suppose not everyone has a technological bent, but another fine example is when he forgot how to read and write just about every word in the Martian language. I’m not sure he ever learned properly at all.”
         “Where’s he at now?”
         “On the roof getting drunk.”
         “Wow, last thing I expected you to say.”
         Shik turned her whole body towards Gerald and thrust her head forward just a slight degree.
         “What is your angle? You’re a little damn friendly.”
         “What? Is it wrong to try and make peace? You try staying in a room with people you insist on avoiding for half a week. It’s better to—“
         “Don’t feed me that. You were right pissed at me last we met, and it doesn’t make sense you’d change your mood because you saw me wet my pants, so to speak.”
         “Do you know why you wet your pants?”
         “Because you’re hiding a reserve of energy that far exceeds anything I ever imagined. Surely you’re the one who can tell me what caused it.”
         “I’ve been holding back a little.”
         She laughed hard at this.
         “Smooth lie. I suppose I can’t expect you to tell me if you won’t even stand up when I ask it of you.”
         “Sorry, but like you say it’s a hard situation for all of us, and I’ve got to keep what secrets I can.”
         “Just go already.”
         “What?”
         “Go feed the damn people and get your ass back here.”
         “R—really?”
         She returned to her earlier stance and shuddered.
         “I can sense you have your mind bent on it and you’ll just sneak out anyway. Fair warning, we won’t be coming to rescue you this time.”
         “Eh?”
         “I’m saying, Vann be damned, if you get over your head you’re on your own. Let the consequences come that may. Keep that in your dirty blond head of yours, not that you should care one whit for us.”
         “Thank you. You’ll not regret this, I’ll just be in and out, you’ll see.”
         Gerald went over and entered the kitchen for the first time. The tiles were caked in dust, the cupboards open and packed with miscellaneous items such as paper bags, canned fruits, vegetables, mousetraps, napkins, a canister of coffee with a faded logo and spoiled bread hard as boulders. There didn’t seem to be any kind of refrigerator and the microwave, or the equivalent of it, proved confusing beyond belief with its hundreds of tiny buttons and knobs.  Luckily Gerald procured a backpack stuffed in the back of a drawer amidst a collection of fabric bags. He poured in a whole variety of food—that which was edible and didn’t need heating—zipping it in place and clumsily putting it over the Oorilox. He returned to Shik looking a hybrid between stealth warrior and a disfigured college student.
         No further words were exchanged as Gerald departed into a cold bare chamber with grated stairs heading down on the left, and up to the right. A large stack of boxes had been piled up in the corner. The only light bulb in the stuffy garage-like room was partially obscured by ventilation shafts and thin metal water pipes. One of the pipes vibrated and made a grating sound like an engine.
         I’m going to have to fight, Gerald thought now faced with the option of heading up or down. I may have to kill more people. I might die. Whatever the case, my relationship with them is going to change one way or the other. I hate them, but I know they’re just prisoners. At least, I think so. Gerald cursed and headed up to see Brent one last time before his departure.
         The roof’s most spectacular feature was the same view accessed everywhere else in the colony. The obscured disk of Mars still hung above as an omniscient seeming fixture, the stars so numerous as to inspire a sublime reverence. The city below continued to impress from its sheer size. In reality it came off as a dark abyss of suffering and a death trap beckoning new victims. The center radio tower had a row of red lights rising to its tip, barely distinguishable from the black space bordering it. Just as he began to look around for the demolition specialist a call caught his attention. It seemed Brent was on the very tower just observed. Gerald climbed onto an elevated part of the roof by the base of the tower and then diligently scaled up a ladder spanning up dozens of stories. He expected wind, of course feeling none, noting as he ascended the city as a whole grow smaller. Still yet the metropolis covered his entire sight from east to west. The climb ended a few yards from the tip with a railed catwalk attaching to the main steel of the structure. Brent’s figure was slouched and obscure in the dark. A couple bottles of ale waited for use at his right.
        Gerald heaved himself up. Brent slipped off his hat and patted upon an empty spot, waiting for his new visitor to take a seat. Instead, Gerald came over to lean against the rail and peer out over the nightmarish landscape. He remarked how the sight pressed on his soul in an astounding way.
         “I never would have imagined, and I know I say this a lot to people,” Gerald said, “that someone like me, a weapon’s engineer who slaved in a factory, would be here. This is all so alien.”
             Brent jumped to a stand with a bottle in hand and projected a chuckle. He clutched a hairy hands on the railing. He grinned broadly.
         “Would you like some?”
         “Hey, later, okay?”
         Brent threw his head back and took a deep glug of the alcohol, ending it with a satisfied breath. After a moment Gerald extended a hand and Brent gladly passed the bottle off.
         “Don’t let me get drunk,” Gerald said and took a few sips.
         “What brings you up here?”
         “I have a desire to be picked off with a sniper shot,” said the cunning after another sip. “You should probably be concerned about that.”
         “Ah, screw it,” he laughed. “It’s more fun when dangerous.”
         “So, does anyone even live there?”
         “Where?”
         “That planet up there.”
         “Mars? They used to, but the domes necessary for colonization are all failing. Mining is a pain. Gotta take the working domes apart and move them around. That just breaks them more.” Brent thought for a moment then asked, “You didn’t know it was named Mars?”
         “I guess I forgot.”
         “Damn,” he said taking another drink. “How do you speak this language even?”
         “Oh, that, well I can piece together any language in a few weeks with exposure.”
         “Shit, don’t give me that ruckus.”
         Maro Vengene’s part of my mind does it for me, Gerald thought as if the entity could hear him. Don’t have time to convince him of that.
         “Nevermind me,” said Gerald. “Is drinking part of your mission here?”
         “Sorry, mate. I’m not drunk enough to tell you. Don’t think I’d ever be.”
         “By the way, Shik says she loves you.”
         Brent’s face turned vivid with shock, either from the news or from the sudden introduction of the subject, his now haphazard beard making him look older than when Gerald first saw him. He tried taking a step away and wound up slipping on one of the ale bottles, falling flat as the bottle rolled from the edge. The shatter could be heard soon after.
         “Here,” Gerald helped him up. “Are you feeling okay?”
         “How’d you hear about that, now?”
         “From her.”
         “Nah, how’d you venture on that subject?”
         “I asked.”
         “How in the hell’d you think to ask that?”
         “Well you follow her around like a love-struck goose, I guess. She noticed.”
         Brent replaced his hat and tightened it firm upon his scalp. Returning to his original seat he leaned close to the view over the city and stared hard.
         “We’re not good people, Gerald. Not good people. Not saying she’s bad, just dedicated. Probably be ashamed of someone like me, whatever her feelings are.”
         The cunning delicately placed the bottle away from his feet and made a clicking sound.
         “I won’t meddle anymore. It’s your game. I feel like I can trust you to say something… a little secret.”
         “Eh? What’s that?”
         “You won’t go telling your girlfriend?”
         “Well, I mean, sure. In exchange for your little tid-bit I guess I’m bound to silence.”
         “First, tell me, both of you feel like Vann’s prisoners?”
         “Now I don’t feel comfortable going down that line of conversation.”
         “Whatever. Look, I may have some idea about your mission.”
         “What?” Brent returned to a stand. “Serious?”
         “I may have something in the works to free us. Not just from this mission, but from Vann.”
         “Do tell, do tell.”
         “Ha, I thought you’d be interested. Just don’t go detonating any damn bombs for now.”
         Brent looked like he’d break into pieces much like the bottle.
         “How in the hell did you figure that out?”
         “You promised not to tell, alright? You’ll still complete your mission, just in a different style.”
         “I don’t know. Man, why’d you have to go and figure that out?”
         Gerald turned his back to the man and faced the ladder. He took a firm step forward that made a loud clomping sound through the lingering silence.
         “Just stay quiet about this for a day. All I ask. I don’t mean to incriminate you or your position in any way.”
         “What are you going to do?” he nearly took Gerald by the shoulders but thought better of it.
         “I’m going to free us from this prison once and for all.”
         Without waiting for response Gerald swooped down and made a quick descent.

         O5.

         It was the same dead road from the astral projection, like the mirror image of a foggy memory that comes suddenly creating the déjà vu effect. The house no longer had a candle illuminating the window, the place shadowed over from faraway structures. It seemed those were the only ones important, leaving the rats at the outskirts huddling up with skulls and sputtering fires. The door came unhinged, for it had no lock mechanism, parting way to the scattered mess of the first floor. Yellowed newspapers and crumpled books on trivial topics such as past sitcoms piled up making raising the stairs quite the task. There, on the second floor, were the bodies of the two, already showing the very first signs of decomposition even in the cold environ.
         Over the fender and motorcycle rags went the man in black donning a miniature flashlight. The reek of rot came not from the newly dead, but from the very streets outside, like someone nearby was busy burning muscles freshly cut from a broad arm. Gerald positioned the father and son, or so he considered them, close together, covering them both with the tattered blankets. He imagined their skulls taken by the next denizens and added to the collection. Taking a moment for prayer and silence he began considering new locations for his bounty of food.
         Back on the street Gerald put away the flashlight to better embrace himself for warmth. The road did seem to stretch into infinity, the few golden skyscrapers the only notes of intrigue. It wouldn’t hurt to scout out such a civilized building, he thought, in light of his desperate need for information. He had little idea where this so-called central government was positioned, who was in charge, or any other minute detail, yet planned from the beginning to find some willing talker along his travels. No such talkers came. The trek continued like the path through an icy garbage dump, a few canisters along the trail filled to the brim with bones. Whether human or animal was a matter altogether irrelevant.
         Hovering through the sky sailed a ghostly little vessel with alien proportions: a bulging front and back end with a thin center, seemingly floating without the aid of any kind of propulsion. The noise it made sent a shiver up Gerald’s spine. It was a constant low whine, oddly conjuring up an image of a choking baby. The darkness and isolation made matters far worse as more of these weeping hovercrafts came behind the first. Gerald eased over to skirt by the yards of the houses, a tremble coming to his already shivering fingers.
         The first intersection had a pit dug out through the asphalt. On one corner lay a toppled pole caught up in a web of black wires. Some of those wires spat electric hiccups into the air, one in particular making a virtual lightshow in a puddle of liquid. On the other corner came crawling a mechanical spider, it’s joints rusted and making an ungodly creek, it’s head a dense concentration of cameras and pee-shooters. Gerald found this one humorous, slipping the opposite way, wondering how such a slow noisemaker could ever expect to apprehend criminals.
         The new street was of newer quality. New automobiles were parked along the curb and a sole streetlamp projected an oval on the rocky ground. Gerald instinctively kept away from the light, walking along the new sidewalk feeling like the dark windows above were watching his every motion. He continued when the baby’s moan returned uncomfortably loud. It descended and hovered above, stationary like a suspended bird. Consumed with fright Gerald began to run finding the horrid thing keeping with his every step.
         The alarm from before resurrected. It seemed the whole city had gone to war in that instant. A dozen dark forms rose from behind buildings at different distances, the far away squeal of a motor closing in on the target. Gerald threw the backpack from his shoulders and assumed his stance, sword in hand, the suit already adjusting for the coming tumult. A sharp pain enveloped his neck. Only then did he notice the alien hovercraft had let loose stream of burning acid, Gerald’s shout conveyed only a fraction of the pain he should be experiencing.
         The world became a blur in a frantic sprint, Gerald pulling his usual tactic of jumping from trouble. He came upon the nearest rooftop finding the effort futile. The hovercraft remained in perfect synchronization letting loose its acid piss. Gerald turned his had back at just the wrong time finding the substance drip down into his squinting eye. The response floored the man, his lungs unable to produce further sound from the excruciating misery.
         His veins bulged and a warm feeling calmed his nerves, the armor reporting “imminent flat line of user’s biological readouts.” Now forced into what might be best described a battle trance the dying warrior let loose the Oorilox into the hovercraft. The close proximity caused the blade’s thrusters to burn into his chest, yet the desired result was done. The thing broke in two and shot wildly in opposite directions. The blade arced around and returned.
           The full weight of the Protocol military closed in from every point of the compass. Gerald used his sword as a walking stick, rising up with the most gruesome expression, his dark form barely visible in the unlit sector. A boiling excitement welled up from within, a concentration of his cunning powers bubbling to the surface in abundance. The suit responded in kind with expanding muscle mass and injecting yet another shot into his veins.
         “Come get some you cock-suckers,” Gerald said in a slur, dropping his sword and dual wielding the guns. He shot wildly and with a superb accuracy, nailing more of the eerie hovercrafts and other dark mechanical masses within rage. Three of the acid carries plummeted. Gerald dropped to a knee, reached in a pouch and reloaded at the maximum speed possible. He returned the pistols to their holsters and then took up the Oorilox before leaping to the next rooftop.
         From the heavens dropped down a battle droid three times the size of the average man, its frame a steel exoskeleton. The landing sent a maze of cracks over the concrete from nail-like legs. It sputtered some message along the lines of “see you in hell,” immediately motioning one of its two rocket-arms for Gerald. The missile flew but the cunning flew faster, darting around the point of contact and cutting for its midsection with the full might of his power. The blade refused to cut into the torso, sliding off much like a knife would slide across glass. The run forced Gerald off the roof and down into the soldier-filled streets. He recovered from the fall immediately. The infantry were merciless as the machines, unloading their magazines with matching faces of agitation. Gerald raced ahead screaming, slicing clear through clothes and flesh whenever they crossed his path. A bullet grazed his arms before he launched far into the sky. In his aerial flight he came upon what appeared to be a floating car without tires, its windows tinted black. The flyer launched a blast of concentrated fire accompanied by two machine guns. The bullets ripped through Gerald, the fire catching his remaining hair ablaze before he smashed into the windshield from his forward velocity. He held tight and let the thing carry him along.
         It stupidly circled around the perimeter. This was no doubt the pilot’s action being acutely aware of having the criminal on his hood. A few tears later from Gerald’s one operating eye and he let the Oorilox slip from his grip and tumble away. It’s not over, he thought. I’m not done yet.
         Taking his bare fist he smashed full on the black windshield. Electric jolts flew from his forearms. The window shattered and before long Gerald brought out the screaming pilot in his brown helmet and god-awful orange jumpsuit. He let the sod fall and took his place at once before the simple controls. Having learned before the operations of a helicopter he found the procedure similar enough, experimenting with various switches and knobs as he hovered forward. Once satisfied that he had found the operations of the gun he steered the vehicle around and sent an immediate wave of shots at an oncoming missile. With extraordinary luck he had managed to ignite the thing before contact, realizing at once he was at far greater risk in the confined flyer than on his own two feet.
         His immediate goal was to escape into a less hostile zone. With this in mind he set the car speeding away backwards, with his sights upon the majority of his enemies. Most of the flying mechanical beasts remained in shadows. Still, he had no doubt they were closing in fast. Just when it seemed a brief moment of respite had come the flying car warned its pilot of a fatal hit to its left side. The thing began to spiral down. Gerald was too dazed and confused to act. It smashed into the side of an artificial tree placed in the center of a small cul-de-sac neighborhood. The impact ejected the pilot.
         Gerald did a complete flip before landing firm on his boots. His body now seemed altogether foreign. It was a muscular figure below a scarred bald head. The damaged eye poured forth pus and blood in an intertwining mixture, electric sparks exploding intermittently from his body. The suit’s knobs span around wildly and without purpose. In a moment of extreme fury he let burst a terrible war cry, casting clenched fists towards the sky. This scream continued as the lightning of his body grew brighter and more frequent. He could picture himself, now a monstrous subhuman, knowing he was forevermore destined to look horribly disfigured. Forget Contra, he thought. She’ll never accept me like this. So fuck all of this. Fuck all of it.
          He recalled the Oorilox. The blue light from the sword’s flame approached fast from the heart of the city. It ploughed right through the closest building breaking it apart in a cloud of dust and rubble. Once the long sturdy hilt slapped his palm and twisted him halfway round the cunning set his bloodthirsty sight upon the incoming battle droids. There were three floating in a perfect row. They were clothed with dark purple steel, their bases flat and two miniature wings on each side. They apparently used the same strange levitating technology as the acid carriers. The top part of the robots were crafted as humanoids, large enough to fit a pilot, the arms equipped with the usual collection of missiles and guns. The trio swooped down in unison but found, on nearing the cul-de-sac, that their target was nowhere to be found.
         Gerald sprung up from behind the three and raced for the middle droid. His horizontal slash produced an explosive sound like a bomb’s ignition, the torso and head of the red humanoid detaching from the base. He used the still hovering base as a springboard before its plummet to launch to the left droid, landing square on its shoulders. Gerald impaled the Oorilox into the head, slipping it out bathed in blood from the struck pilot. Then out came the pistols, a barrage from Gerald’s handguns striking the head and body of the final machine. The tactic proved successful: the third robot blew into a brilliant orange flame. Gerald launched himself off and all but soared through the air, returning the pistols to their holsters.
         He landed on another street swarming with infantry, some of the men bellowing “dues” and “superhuman,” a small collection retreating in terror. Wasting no time Gerald swung the blade in a full circle, killing at once the soldiers standing in close proximity. Oddly enough the men did not fire. They backed away to let enter a strange warrior casually strolling forth from an alleyway. “Queen Zukin,” said one, followed by a cry from a hundred lungs “Queen! Queen!” She had on light leather armor full of pouches holding daggers and bottles of some unknown substance. Her hair was long and dyed a very light purple, her lips curled into a sly grin. The most curious feature was her eyes. They were a blazing yellow. Gerald recognized this as the same trait of both Frederick Vanhorne and Maro Vengene. It was the sign of an immortal superhuman.
         “Enough fighting,” Gerald yelled at the top of his capacity.
         The queen turned her side to him and laughed, showing then the crooked blade clutched by her pale palm. It had a metal handle where the steel curved around her knuckles in a crescent shape. The edge of that strange dagger reflected the few lights shining down from streetlamps. She seemed unwilling to move, playfully eyeing the enemy dues. Gerald spread his feet apart and gripped the Oorilox handle tight. He panted from his exhaustion and tried again to tell her the fighting should cease. He expected some response, even a scoff, yet the queen insisted on silence.
         “I’m not with Vann’s twenty. I was forced to get this tattoo. I was forced to come here. It’s not my choice. I have something of extreme importance to talk about.”
         The queen responded with a broad grin. Then a few jolts of electric power popped forth from her arms. Gerald marveled. She’s just like me. She’s a cunning. Maybe even part of the same bloodline, who knows.
         “Markus,” The queen finally spoke in a sprightly, up-beat tone. “Come here!”
         One of the soldiers from the group awkwardly pushed through his fellows and came to Zukin’s side. He gave a sloppy salute with a fist to the heart.
         “What might I do you for, your majesty?”
         “Who is this ape talking to me, you know, that thing right there.”
         The one named Markus cast a nervous glance in Gerald’s direction. The one referred to spit to his side, noticing a dozen battle droids circling over his head and ready to crush him with their full power.
         “I don’t know his name…”
         “Names, names! We give names to humans. That thing looks like a great ape. Just look at his fucking head.”
         “He’s part of Vann’s army, ma’am. He’s done killed dozens of us. We all saw it here.”
         Gerald became acutely aware of the bloody bodies at his feet.
         “Do you speak its language?”
         “He seems to speak ours fine, ma’am.”
         “Tell it I’m going to kill it now.”
         “Um, well,” he began to shout, “Hey, the Queen says—“
         “Shut the hell up,” Gerald replied. “This whole colonies going to be blown to oblivion. I’ve come to tell you that, and I didn’t ask to be attacked. You started this.”
         “What did it say?” Queen Zukin said playing with her hair.
         “He said the colonies going to be blown to oblivion.”
         “Threats then, is it?”
         “Not threats,” Gerald said with increasing anger. “The two who enslaved me are bent on doing it. I intend to stop it, but it’s better if you evacuate the hell out of here. All of you.”
         “He said we should evacuate.”
         “Oh? Well tell it we would have done that a long time ago, but the Saturn colony sure is slow in admitting us, ha! I would like to give those clowns a good cutting.”
         “There are other options,” Gerald said. “You gotta leave one way or the other, and immediately.”
         Queen Zukin faced Gerald once more and came closer, her black shoes tapping on the asphault. It seemed she had a crescent blade in each hand. Once coming to the row of bleeding corpses, an arm’s length from Gerald, she tilted her head and peered on him with the kind of fascination one give on viewing an interesting animal at a zoo. She seemed young. Her expressions were full of zest and energy. She was also fairly tall, only half a head’s length below Gerald.
         “We’ve been quite aware of your compatriots’ activities,” she said, finally speaking to him directly. “Do you suppose we are so powerless?”
         “I had no way of knowing. I only figured out their plan hours ago.”
         “You’ve sure had a wonderful stroll out here. I believe we’ll be counting the dead from your activities for quite a while.”
         “In every case I was attacked first. Vehemently attacked. If I didn’t act I would have been dead in seconds.”
         “Man, you’re really ugly.”
         “Thanks. Now about the evacuation.”
         “I do thank you for the warning, but I really must apologize. You are one of Vann’s, er, Vann’s twenty-one, I suppose.”
         “I told you—“
         “Ah, but it’s always just a question of time before submission follows inauguration to her fold. I really have made it a matter of practice to kill anyone that’s part of it. I’m going to kill you now.”
         She launched at him such that Gerald barely had time to block the slashing blades. The power from the impact was far greater than he expected. The force launched him into the sky. His ass crashed against the top of the closest house, his body tumbling onto the cracked and partially demolished roof. The Queen came a split moment after jumping in a fury of electric sparks. Gerald rolled back to evade her crushing impact, her crescent daggers digging into the concrete. She recovered at once and began a sort of spinning dance, her two weapons making rapid and powerful blows, each deflected just in time from Gerald’s artful maneuvering. Still, she continued pushing him back until the man’s footing reached the edge of the platform.
         “Stop this,” Gerald said. “This is insanity!”
         The Queen did not seem to hear. Her features were fueled with a passionate joy and an almost sadistic pleasure. The final blow knocked Gerald off the roof onto a landfill. The heaps of garbage spanned ahead a quarter mile. Gerald hopped from one pile of garbage to the next being pursued directly behind. Once near the end Gerald made a sudden turn shooting the Oorilox. He followed by release a barrage from both pistols. Without trouble the Queen dodged all assaults, dropping below the sword as it sped by then jumping up above Gerald’s bullets. The man wasn’t quick enough. The Queen’s strong kick  knocked him off balance. He lost both pistols and skid along the garbage on his back. Zukin came up to him, looking down upon the pathetic creature who now cried out.
         “I don’t have much practice skinning animals,” she said.
         “Don’t kill me! I’ve always been against Vanhorne. Always!”
         Overhead one of the closest battle droids blew up. The intense noise made Gerald’s ears ring and the ground vibrated. The Queen disinterestedly peeked up towards it, then back down.
         “I believe your bomb guy did that,” she said more to herself. “Now if you weren’t associated with them other than being their slaves, why do you think he’d try helping out like that?”
         “Don’t kill me,” was all Gerald could think to say, his entire body seizing on itself. “I—I may look ugly, but I’m only twenty-nine. I’m gonna get us out of the army! I gotta plan, but I have to get off here first.”
         “Ah, still a child?” She said, now leaning over him and petting his scarred and flaky forehead. “It’s a pity. I don’t find many dues these days. You were amusing. I only wish I could have fought you before you got all banged up by my silly little military.”
         Zukin raised a dagger and plunged it right into Gerald’s chest. It pierced the suit and drew up an abundance of dark blood. It was over. Gerald had lost. Whimpering and imagining the sunny days before his body had taken its first wound he said aloud that he wanted to die quick. “Just stab the heart,” he begged. “End me. End me.”
         Consciousness faded.

         O6.

         “You changed your mind?” Gerald exclaimed. He was tied in chains to a pillar within the Queen’s quarters. It was a relatively small room of dark blue. To the prisoner’s right was a throne on a three step elevation where Zukin rested her head boredly against a golden scepter. She had on some type of fancy damask that covered over her leather armor. From the throne across to the tall double doors was a lush red rug. Straight ahead from Gerald rested piles of sacks filled to the brim with coal, the purpose of which he couldn’t say.
         The cunning’s suit had been removed, his body bandaged from neck to toe. He felt the urge to use the bathroom, much greater than the urge to give in to the pain, but couldn’t move a single pinky in his bound state. Attempts to itch or wiggle met with abject failure. Gerald didn’t know how long he’d been there. Some few hours since he’d woken, he thought, and during that time Zukin ignored his every word, yet staring at him on occasion with the same dehumanizing and fascinated stare.
         She got up to stroll from the room with a haughty gait. The double wood doors creaked on being opened, then creaked again on her return with a plate of food and a glass of water. Gerald thought he’d be offered the stuff as common courtesy to prisoners, but found the queen meant it for herself, dining with an apparent voracious appetite. After her meal she took up the gold scepter left on the throne and came over to poke Gerald’s shoulders.
         “Stop that.”
         “I’ve never taken a hostage before. This is amusing.”
         “Ouch! Stop. So, what, you spared me for some reason?”
         She kept on poking without response. Eventually she grew bored and moved on to bopping Gerald’s bald head every three seconds with superb timing.
         “Stop!”
         “I never changed my mind.”
         “Eh?”
         “Soon as I saw you I simply had to capture you.”
         “But, why did you try and kill me out there?”
         “If I had told you ‘I have to capture you,’ you’d just have surrendered. I wanted to fight you. You really disappointed me out there.”
         She stopped in her bopping and leaned against the scepter.
         “I’ve never seen such a mess. You sure you’re human?”
         “You have a bent towards cruelty.”
         “Eh? So I’ve been told. Life bores me. So does playing the social game. I’ll act how I am, let opinion be damned.”
         “You’re a cunning?”
         “A what?”
         “Your eyes…”
         “I’m a dues, like you. We descended from some experimental freaks. Nothing much else to it.”
         “Look,” Gerald raised his head to look at her. “I don’t know what the two I’m with are up to, but you have to evacuate every last person. Please.”
         She smiled.
         “We have three ships being prepared. One is to depart for the Elenor. It’s pretty much extinct population-wise but it should have life support systems we can use. Another to the Sint, an old mining colony by Phobos. Then finally I’ll man the last ship. God knows where we’ll go. Truth is,” she paused in her speech, leaning down so her face was level with the prisoner’s, “we’ve tried negotiating with our neighbors for decades. They simply never wanted us.”
         “What about now?”
         “They still don’t want us. The haven of human civilization, the Saturn colony, even denies our pilgrimage. They keep making excuses and coming up with reason why we should hold on just a little longer. I believe it’s my past. See, I used to be part of the Saturn colony a few centuries back. I took part in a rebellion that split from the main government during a time of particular bloodshed across space. Holed up under the seas of Titan. It was there I found out about my unique abilities. Soon after I returned and joined in the war effort against what had been corrupted officials around the Saturn network. I did them some pretty mean damage.
         “Few remember it now with the blink and all, but I suspect many still alive have an inkling about me.” She shrugged. “I do regret not being more of a scholar. I could help build new life support systems. I just never bothered to learn that technical jargon.”
         “I’m glad,” Gerald finally said. “I’m glad you’re evacuating. My task is complete. You can do with me whatever you will. I’m really tired. I don’t know if I can go on like this.”
         Zukin snorted during her laugh.
         “You are going to work for us, if what you say about your intention is true. You keep your bastard friends off us long enough to go incognito.”
         “What, you believe me?”
         “I might as well. You think word of you hasn’t reached HUB? I know you helped kill Million, y’know.”
         “Oh?”
         “Heck, you did pretty well for yourself on the Psyche planet. Saving that city from Vann.
         “Zaphile? Yeah.”
         “I’m glad I took you hostage. I really had no idea you were the ‘yellow-lightning’ Gerald from rumors and lore. Too bad you’re so damn ugly.”
         “Thanks again.”
         “You ever think of investing in a mask?”
         “I might consider it.”
         “You kind of stink too. Like body odor and sweat and blood.”
         “Gee, I wonder how I came to smell like that?”
         The Queen giggled taking Gerald by surprise from the innocent sounding laugh. She excitedly paced from her throne to the doors across the carpet. Back and forth she went while twirling the gold rod between nimble hands.
         “We depart in thirty Martian hours, Gerald.”
         “That a long time?”
         “Yes! But it takes time to prepare such a mass exodus, don’t you think?”
         “Yeah. I should probably take care of things on my end. Do you plan to untie me?”
         “I might just do that. First you have to promise we’ll have a rematch one day.”
         “Are you crazy?”
         “I want to fight you when you’re not half dead, Gerald.”
         “I may wind up being dead with the fucking hole you punched in my chest.”
         “We have an excellent medical team. You’ve been asleep for six days.”
         “Six days?”
         “I’ve instructed the colony to allow you free passage in the city. I’d still watch out for the occasional revenge seeker out there.”
         “Six days? Good God, they must be ready to blow up Protocol by now!”
         “I doubt they’d blow it up while they’re still on it. My spy network reports their still in the vicinity.”
         “I have to speak to them. I’ll tell them everything. If they don’t let you go, I’ll take care of it.”
         “Exactly as I expected,” she all but purred the words. “Now, make the promise.”
         “Good God, fine. I promise we’ll have a rematch one day.”
         “I love it!” She clapped her hands twice and shouted for her personal valets. Two younger men, one brown-headed and the other red with freckles, piled in before giving the salute by their hearts. Zukin requested they unbind the prison. They only hesitated a moment, looking one to the other, before setting to work unlocking the web of chains. Once free the Queen herself helped Gerald up and furiously patted his shoulder.
         “Nothing personal about my animal remarks, Gerald,” The Queen said as she sent the valets away. “I talk about a lot of people that way. They know I’m just kidding.”
         “You’re really, really strange,” Gerald mumbled.
         “The rumors about you all say you’re strange. Did you ever bother listening to them? Ah, I have a few rumors of my own legend circulating. They range from psycho-bitch to level-headed and benevolent military leader.”
         Gerald turned to the door. He placed his covered hands on his sides and bit a lip from pain. He waited a moment, enduring the Queens continued odd stare, then said “What do the rumors say about me?”
         “Let’s see. One called you a player, always hanging around with different women every month.”
         “Shit,” Gerald mumbled. “I can’t always help my circumstances.”
         “Oh, the worst of them said a mad human slayer who enjoys nothing but battle. I believe that one best.”
         “Again, circumstances…”
         “One said you were a scary-faced jokester who never took anything serious.”
         “Alright, alright, I’ve heard enough. Thanks for the amusement, anyway.”
         Gerald looked at Zukin and tried his best to grin.
         “Despite our manner of getting acquainted, I kind of like you. We’ll have our battle someday. Goodbye.”
         “Good luck saving our asses, yellow-lightning. See you.”
         The red-headed valet from before escorted Gerald down a spiral staircase and stopped him before an opening. They entered a crowded and poorly-lit room with a bunch of thug-like men in brown jackets. They grumbled and stared at the enemy dues being held back only by the Queen’s orders. Still yet they spared no expense in dispensing insults of every variety. The most common was on his head. After all he had but one eye, half of his nose and mouth free from the scars and burns, the five hairs remaining spread unevenly across the scalp. The valet led Gerald through the den of rogues to an open glass door leading out into the dark street. Before leaving the valet stopped Gerald and pulled out a large brown cardboard box from under a table.
         “These are your things, sir”
         “My things?”
         “Your clothes and sword, sir. The Queen’s orders.”
         “She really does trust my word,” he said with some personal satisfaction. “I won’t let you down.”
         He left the Queen’s tower holding the box and lumbering forth. He went down a block and hid himself behind an old tin shack by the skeleton of a dog. He decided to reequip himself there, knowing he had a long walk ahead of him.

         Brent was found at the bottom of the hill, in front of a gated fence that marked the beginning of the restricted area. Above him stood the familiar building with its radio towers and lights flipped on at the second floor. The demolition expert came to life on seeing his old comrade’s return, rushing to give him a firm embrace. Gerald returned it saying he was glad to see him, too.
         “Where’s Shik?” Gerald said. “I need to talk to both of you.”
         “It’s bad,” Brent exclaimed throwing up his arms. “She tried to kill herself.”
         “What?”
         “It was when you riled up the city, Gerald, many days ago. I figured what you were up to and went out to help. Shik had figured it out too and said she followed you a ways in her spirit form. She returned to her real body and left for the city. I caught sight of her and followed, asking what she intended. Right then she seemed rational enough, saying it was our duty to protect Vann’s cargo—even if she did say she wasn’t going to.”
         “Yes? Go on.”
         “Well we travelled together a while and never could find you. Had to dispatch more than a few security robots. We scaled up a tall building hoping to see where the enemy was concentrated knowing that’d give your location away. There’s when she grew super depressed and started talking nonsense.”
         “What sort of nonsense?”
         “She has this thing called the spirit dagger. It’s a physical attack she can make in her spirit form, but it takes something like a fifth of her lifespan every use. She’d used it once before and brought up that point. She said she’s going to die young, and wasn’t going to go through with our mission any longer—that the world would be better off without her. Said she knew your plan all along but couldn’t bring herself to stop you, that her humanity was catching up to her. She believes we’re going to be killed by Vann soon as all this is over.”
         “I see…”
         “She drew that circle thing on herself that she gave to you. Said that way when she dies she wouldn’t wander Spectral or enter any kind of afterlife. She’d just experience eternal nothingness. I restrained her from throwing herself off the building, but she scratched at my arms and fought to escape my grip like a wild animal. The moment I let her go, thinking she’d calmed down, she took out a knife and made for her throat. That’s when I had to knock the lights out of her.”
         “I had no idea,” Gerald said. “Is she okay?”
         “Inside, Gerald. I’ve watched her ever since thinking honestly that you were killed. That’s until a women, I think it’s the queen, made a loud announcement that you weren’t to be harmed. I’ve been coming out here since then.”
         “Has she regained consciousness?”
         “A few times. We talked. They were nice chats, but I don’t think she’s changed her mind…even I can’t stop her. She’s really bent on killing herself.”
         “Alright. Well let’s go see her. We’ll wrap up this Protocol business once and for all and deal with Vann when the time’s right.”
         The pair climbed the steep mountain and entered the old government building. They came through the hall on the second floor into the familiar room with the black and red carpet, marble walls and numerous glass tables. Gerald found Shik lying with her mask off before the row of windows. Her clothes were wrinkled and unwashed, her face turned away and her tangled hair lacking its shine and luster from before. On hearing the pair’s entrance she slowly turned to look at her comrades. The circular seal could be seen at the bottom of her neck partially concealed by the buttoned up shirt. She made no attempt to rise. Those eyes did not seem to focus on either of them, her nose wrinkled as if smelling something putrid, lips curled. After a time her features relaxed and she said a barely discernible “welcome back.”
         Gerald leaned by her side. Brent stood directly behind.
         “Do you know what I’ve done?”
         “I believe so,” she whispered.
         “Thirty Martian hours, then we can leave and blow up the Protocol.”
         “How? How did you figure out the mission?”
         “Maro Vengene told me.”
         She yelled and came to sudden life, now sitting up and sliding away from Gerald toward the cold wall. “Lies,” she declared before biting her own long nails, her hands without gloves for the first time.
         “He’s part of me, Shik.”
         “Who the hell is Maro Ven-whatever.” Brent said utterly lost.
         “He’s evil personified,” Shik said. “He’s the source of every dark feeling.”
         “You’ve been sufficiently propagandized.”
         “Get the hell away from me,” she flailed her head about wildly. “How did Vann allow his mortal enemy into our organization? I’ll kill you. I’ll take more of my lifespan to do it if I have to.”
         Gerald took Shik by the sides and shook her, commanding that she calm down.
         “Maro Vengene is going to be the one to free us. We’re going to be free, damn it.”
         “No!”
         “You must know somewhere that what you’re doing is wrong. That Vann is the enemy, no one else. Otherwise you wouldn’t have tried to kill yourself!”
         “No! It’s my own weakness. Vann has just cause to kill these people. They’re all his enemies. They want to stop him from creating new and prosperous lands for dying humanity. It’s my own weakness that I can’t…”
         Gerald slapped the woman upside the cheek.
         “Shut up! I lived in her old universal bubble. I know how she operates. It’s not fucking prosperity. It’s suffering. Suffering just like this. Relying on Vann isn’t the answer. Can’t you see that she’s the one who caused this society to fall apart the way it is now? She’s the one snuffing the life out of the few feeble colonies remaining. It’s time we stand up for ourselves and make a new future. Free of divine rule and bullshit superhumans warring with one another. We’re going to end this circus. We have the power to do it.”
         Her stare belied a state of shock. She seemed to crumble in Gerald’s hold.
         “I can’t change. I am who I am,” she said. “I give up. I really have given up. Go through with your plan of saving these savages. See if I care.”
         “Shik,” Brent chimed in. “I don’t know if we’ll get out of punishment for this or not. But I’ve long since thought Gerald’s view was right. You yourself said we were prisoners. That’s what we are.”
         “For a just cause…”
         “Gerald’s right! We’ve been deluded. We’ve been enslaved by the enemy. You’ve got to see that. Just come with us for a while. There’s more to life than this. You’ll never know what’ll make you smile tomorrow if you kill yourself now. Just trust us for now. Please.”
         Shik burst into a fit of tears and took Gerald in a tight hug, burrowing her face into his chest. The cunning sighed deep and closed his eyes, taking her head tenderly and kissing her head. The moment came off surreal. It was like an awakening had happened in that room. Soon, Gerald knew, the room would be no more, yet he smiled inwardly knowing the lives of tens of thousands were saved.
         Thirty Martian hours came and went. The three members of Vann’s army now walked side-by-side through the abandoned streets of the city. Not a single sound could be heard anywhere. Shik remained in ill-temper, yet for the moment seemed set on remaining alive. She latched onto Brent as they went. In return he would hold her tight and make small talk mostly involving his favorite foods or his ideas on starting a new mining company “once things settle down.” Gerald said nothing. His thoughts focused on Contra. He knew there was no future between them. No one could love someone as ugly as he.
         They returned to their ship after unlocking its interior hatch.  The group found with some relief that the ship remained in perfect operation. Gerald took a seat near the back upon a broad earthy chair, crossing his arms and resting his chin on one of the knobs of his suit. Brent made sure everything was set for departure, the poor man hardly sure of what that entailed other than sealing back the hatch, and Shik uninterestedly worked at the central terminal. The conical diagram continued to project the hologram of the Martian space stations. Before long it updated to include the ship’s new destination. They were heading for the Grand orbiting around Deimos, the headquarters of Vann and her twenty. It was here they would meet her after her return from the distant database. It was here Gerald would discover whether removing the cerebral bombs was a possibility. Maro Vengene remained quite on this point.
         “Alright,” said Shik. “Let’s just do this.”
         “I’ll detonate twenty minutes after departure,” Brent reported. He joined Gerald in an adjacent seat holding a device no bigger than a playing card, though thicker. The red switch had no plastic covering.
         “Departing,” Shik said.
         There was a rumble and a sound like flowing water somewhere in the ship’s bowels. Since there were no windows the diagram told everything they needed. The next twenty minutes were spent in silence. The flip came, then a vibration, then silence once more.
         “It’s done,” Brent said. “We’re done.”
         Shik rose from her place. She moved her hair behind her shoulders.
         “I’m going to sleep again. Gerald, if you want me to remove the seal…”
         “Sleep first. Do that later. Sweet dreams.”
         She left with a smile. Brent got up soon after to walk about the bridge aimlessly. Gerald felt like a figurine stuck in place as he remained stationary for the longest time. It wasn’t until Brent left for the back when the diagram began to flash and a computerized voice announced an incoming message. It didn’t take the cunning long to figure out how to accept it.
         Queen Zukin’s mug flashed on the hologram, sitting in a fancy pilot’s seat wearing the same glamorous attire. She leaned in closer and laughed with a snort.
         “Did you see that explosion you big ape?”
         “I missed it, but felt it.”
         “We’re all safe, Gerald. The other ships are en route without a hitch. We’re off to the moon colony. Yeah, it’s that one near the earth.”
         “What direction is this earth?”
         “It’s towards the white dwarf, silly. It was a real pleasure meeting you.”
         “How’d you contact this ship, anyway?”
         “What do you take me for? I had some guys slip in and take your communication’s code. It was while you were snoozing the days away.”
         “And here we thought no one had intruded.”
         Zukin leaned back against the queenly chair and wove her hand in a dismissive gesture.
         “Don’t forget your promise. You have fun with your new crew.”
         “Thanks.”
         Right before the video cut out she shouted playfully that he shove a stick up Vann’s behind. Gerald grinned and nodded. After Queen Zukin left the bridge darkened. The silence was painfully evident.
         They had bought themselves peace of mind. Even Shik, he imagined, slept without troubles. The threat of Vann’s punishment became secondary to the simple act of doing what was right. He would enjoy the next few days before their arrival. In high spirits Gerald departed to his bedroom, prisoner no more, looking forward to a long and dream-filled sleep.
           
         The End.

Act VIII